Photo by Max Bender
Todos Santos
I imagine myself
in Todos Santos, Mexico.
I’m wearing a dress –
white lace embroidered
with red flowers. I toss my hair
into a ponytail, tie it up
with a blue ribbon.
I swing your photo gallery
door wide open, and see you
sitting at your desk, your brown hair flecked
with gray, in a ponytail too.
You’d look at me, your eyes
curious at first, and then
you’d rise and step closer
the same beautiful soul
shining through those eyes.
“Ali,” you’d say,
and you’d invite me in
and I’d scan the walls
with all their photographs
of the rock bands, the prostitutes
the street art—and right in the middle
there’s a photograph of me—
the one from thirty years ago
on our last morning in Paris.
I’m standing by the window
shower droplets floating
down my skin like sprays
of deep-sea pearls. The hotel’s deep scarlet
curtains drawn back, exposing
the pale blue sun.
“Let me photograph you wet,”
you told me back then
when we still loved each other.
“Come over to the window.
Just you. Just me.
Think of a secret.
A deep one.
Don’t tell me.
But think it.”
You pointed your camera
and my eyes looked at you
through the lens—my secret, I thought
is you.
“It’s you,” you’d say
with all the saints,
“it’s really you.”
And you’d move closer, your new wrinkles
crinkling up your face.
“I imagined you
around every corner,” I whisper.
“Wherever I went,
I was looking for you.”
The Author
A United States/Canadian citizen, Terri Hanauer graduated with an honors degree in Theatre Arts from York University, Toronto.
She is an award-winning theatre director. She is also an actor, photographer and writer.
Stevie Wonder blessed her baby when she was nine months pregnant, magician Doug Henning sawed her in half when she was his assistant and the hugging saint, Amma, hugged her.
Her short story, “Blue Suede Shoes” was published in On The Bus, “The Cat” in Side-Eye Anthology.
She has just completed her debut novel, The Lightness of Rain.
Terri Hanauer