{"id":3460,"date":"2015-08-04T16:10:47","date_gmt":"2015-08-04T16:10:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/?p=3460"},"modified":"2015-08-04T16:18:28","modified_gmt":"2015-08-04T16:18:28","slug":"the-photographer-fading-desiree-bailey","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/?p=3460","title":{"rendered":"THE PHOTOGRAPHER, FADING &#8212; Desiree Bailey"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>We are ink frozen, dancing<br \/>\nin the skinned house<br \/>\nweaving through the den<br \/>\nof ceramic frogs, the salt<br \/>\nand pepper shakers<br \/>\ndressed in the mask of hens.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Five children<br \/>\ncousins with the breath<br \/>\nof guava leaves<br \/>\npinned to our hair, sweating<br \/>\nbeneath a cloak of vinyl<br \/>\nin a dusty photo album.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 60px;\">*<\/p>\n<p>I peel the photograph from its page,<br \/>\na drawing of light<br \/>\nsuddenly heavy<br \/>\n&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>a body<br \/>\n&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>whose thread<br \/>\nhas been pulled through<br \/>\nand through<br \/>\na body<br \/>\nheavy with the shock of empty.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 60px;\">*<\/p>\n<p>I touch the gloss.<br \/>\nMy fingers listen for what memory<br \/>\nwill not say:<br \/>\nA woman becomes a mirage<br \/>\na click behind the shutter<br \/>\nan echo of gold bangles<br \/>\ntaking this picture.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 60px;\">*<\/p>\n<p>Touch will say what memory dare not:<br \/>\nImages remain<br \/>\nwhile a photographer fades<br \/>\nyellowing in the bones<br \/>\nof the walls, vanishing<br \/>\ninto the lean of a darkened house.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"  wp-image-3465 alignleft\" src=\"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/08\/nn-headshot-Desiree-Bailey.jpg\" alt=\"nn, headshot, Desiree Bailey\" width=\"181\" height=\"171\" srcset=\"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/08\/nn-headshot-Desiree-Bailey.jpg 1562w, https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/08\/nn-headshot-Desiree-Bailey-300x283.jpg 300w, https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/08\/nn-headshot-Desiree-Bailey-1201x1133.jpg 1201w, https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/08\/nn-headshot-Desiree-Bailey-720x679.jpg 720w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 181px) 100vw, 181px\" \/>Desiree Bailey was born in Trinidad and Tobago and grew up in Queens, New York. She has an MFA from Brown University and has received fellowships from Princeton in Africa, the Norman Mailer Center and the Callaloo Creative Writing Workshop. She is also a recipient of the Poets and Writers\u2019 Amy Award and a Pushcart nominee. Her work has been published or is forthcoming in Callaloo, Best American Poetry, Muzzle and Blackberry. She is currently the fiction editor at Kinfolks Quarterly.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>We are ink frozen, dancing in the skinned house weaving through the den of ceramic frogs, the salt and pepper shakers dressed in the mask of hens. &nbsp; Five children cousins with the breath of guava leaves pinned to our hair, sweating beneath a cloak of vinyl in a dusty photo album. * I peel [&#038;hellip<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3463,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[163,162],"class_list":["post-3460","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-poetry","tag-i-met-myself-in-the-sky","tag-art-brianna-mccarthy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3460","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3460"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3460\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3475,"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3460\/revisions\/3475"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3463"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3460"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3460"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3460"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}