Slow Exposure

Sarah fishing 1974

I’ve kept the photo on my desk

For fifty years –

sun-bleached now –

a square of shadows

nothing more.

Look carefully - you might make out

trees in the distance

and in the foreground

a faint figure

which just might be a child

but I can see the sunlight

touch her hair, gleam

like fireflies on the stream

she strokes with her long net,

seeking sticklebacks and little tench,

silver minnows glinting

in the take-home jar.