Helen Losse, Before Photoshop

Helen Losse
BEFORE PHOTOSHOP
—after a photo by Robert Canipe

“The wire behind the house
kept the photo from being perfect,”
said the photographer, though he didn’t
put it quite like that; he mumbled
something about a “damn wire,”
but that’s what he meant.

Above the trees in the foreground,
blackened to sacred by time of day,
a small touch of blue sky,
yellow & gray above that—
in clouds that gently roll—
then other clouds like billowing fire:
red-orange & charred black.

Below the awning of the window
through which the photo was
obviously taken, the color of sky itself
had become reason enough to live,
even before Photoshop.

Bio: Helen Losse is the author of two full length poetry books, Seriously Dangerous (Main Street Rag, 2011), Better With Friends (Rank Stranger Press, 2009), and three chapbooks. Her third book Facing a Lonely West: Poems About Loss will be released from Main Street Rag in 2014.