On weekends I used to go into town
to shoot in black and white.
People strolling, kids running free,
dogs or cars or any funny thing.
The woman with the camera.

Now I just shoot ghosts along
the plague scoured streets
and empty parking lots,
lucky for a distant shot of life
in the few unshutter shops.

Sitting on a sunny bench,
having coffee and a smoke,
it's like she's been waiting for me
to come around the corner
and capture her solitary tenure.

She smiles herself into the corner
giving me the nest of burnt red curls
beneath her outstretched
gallery arm, blue-tipped fingers
stroking the back rail.

I shoot and shoot again
as she shifts and poses, teasing
my camera's hungry eye.
She arches back, her taunt white tank
proclaiming the piercings underneath.

A horn blares from the street
and with a wave, she scrambles up.
"See ya," she says, "that was fun."
then swaggers her way across
to the black truck that quickly pulls away.

Standing alone again, I let my camera dangle
and touch myself, pressing
into the confining cloth that covers
the loneliness and desire
I try to ignore like a wolf howling at my door.