Cynthia Rylant: Studio

STUDIO

He opened it because he loved
being his own boss and because he'd
always liked the solitude of the camera.
Always liked being the only one involved.
Then after maybe a hundred or two hundred
photographs
it came to him that he was snapping
destinies
and that the faces lining his walls
were going to die of whooping cough
or heartbreak
and disappear
and go mad
and it got so
he couldn't look at them
on his way out the door
or he'd be up all night wondering when:
when their careful features
would one day spin out of control.