Stepan

In the picture I took of them six years ago, on film, she is in the blurry foreground, he is sitting in the background. She’s walking towards him looking at his back, at his peacefully still position. His face is aligned with the vertical midline of the image. 

He’s looking through the hole in the fence, his hand outstretched: offering the tall green grass to the hungry goats on the other side. They’ve grazed away the vegetation on their lawn, but the neighbor’s promising overgrowth is just out of reach. 

Her shadow extends onto the fence, tall and poised, an inch away from my shadow. The neighboring house peers just over the fence, eyes staring, perfectly in line with the unleveled fence. 

The shadows of the house and the outhouse close in from the left and right. 

Maybe if I go over the details enough, it will mean something. Maybe, this picture I took is the universe speaking through it, making irony out of time.

He was close to the other side. She was behind him, and he didn’t seem to see her. I watched it happen from far away. That is what happened…

I could do something with it, if it was meant to mean something.

But I don’t think that I believe that it was.