Modes

The portraitist,
accoutrements: her cove,
                          a curving
floor-to-ceiling wall—
             white, no right angles. 
                           Canvas backdrop, 
                                         single chair,
a soft box and reflector.
I sit before the tripod, subject to light.

“Set-up is ninety per cent,” she says, 
   and slips the India silk
across my shoulders, hooding my hair.
“Close your eyes.” 
              I do; she shoots—first
a Polaroid prep.
  
The allegretto
strings in Beethoven’s
numinous last quartet suffuse the room.
My image comes up quick—ethereal girl,  
borne away in the head of a deaf man.

She snaps the film-back onto the Hasselblad.
“Close your eyes and open slowly. 
              Centre on your chest.”
I lower my nose,
    
hear the lento e tranquillo,
                                          deeply. 
Camera captures every fraction,
reckons every breath.
 
Sepia: the second set.
Wearing my woven Ephesus shawl,
I’m altered—almond-eyed, almost, and older.
                        Grave ma non troppo tratto.
Weave of that biblical city
transposes me
instantly
into a Lydian. 

—ELANA WOLFF

(Originally published, Christmas, 2006.)