Though initially both Danny and Jacky refused to be in a picture with the other one, they soon rose from the front stoop of Jacky’s house and walked across the street to sit on the plaid sofa which, they said, had belonged to a man “who keeps to himself.” Baby Landon had no choice about any of it.
When asked to write a poem about one of the images of DISCARDED or about the collection as a whole, Lexington poet and friend Martha Gehringer chose this one.
Image and text by Kurt Gohde and Kremena Todorova, Discarded project.
Image and text by Kurt Gohde and Kremena Todorova, Discarded project.
Fade to the Photograph
By Martha Gehringer
of a young mother posing
with her firstborn in her lap—
note her free hand, palm upturned,
exhausted, at her side—note
the horse-hair sofa it is resting on—
and the pack of Lucky Strikes
beside the hand—and note her
milk-white countenance
her thin hair pulled back slick—
the one rogue strand of it
come loose across her cheek—
and in her flat lap, note
the newborn boy, bigger,
already, than she will ever be.
Leave a Reply