Rg - Light Leaks

rg— not a word. A wound. A color between rose and rust, geranium and grief. The sprocket holes blur. What was meant to be a face is now a geography of leak: orange rivers, green lakes shrinking into red.

Look: the final print is wrong in the most honest way. Your shoulder is a waterfall of amber. The sky behind you has a pulse. We are not in this photograph— we are what escaped when the seal broke. R.G. leak. remember. ruin gently. End note on the frame: (A single strip of 35mm. At the bottom, scratched into the emulsion: “light leaks rg / don’t fix this.”) light leaks rg

digital poem / simulated 35mm film strip (The frame starts dark. Then—a crack of magenta, a thumbprint of sun.) rg— not a word

R.G. In the darkroom, your initials bleed through the fixer. R for reappear . G for gone . I hold the negative up— you are all inversion now: your laugh a white scar, your hand a shadow against a window where the sun shouldn’t reach. The sprocket holes blur