A Binary of Opposites:
The Roc, or Portrait of Guilt in a Developing Photograph
By Eric-Anderson Momou
She plucks the photograph from the bathtub, She clutches the photograph from the grimy tub
Waves it in the island breeze, Sloughs off the dust, as flakes part in the wind
To baptize it in the air stream. As she raises it Dunking in the malaise of the breeze
In the Sun, Offering to the Moon
An image develops. The shadow forms
She flicks the flecks of moisture, from off Blowing the gypsum dust, from off
The chemical parchment. The papyrus
The sound is like crumbling bones, thunder snaps The crisp semblance like a glass armonica peals
Ballistic missiles, crackling static, tap code Angelic choir, trickling water, lingua franca
Like a dentist’s drill, Like Gilead’s balm,
To the encoder’s brainstem, To quench the tongue of the traveler
Freezes his seizing jaw with gilded grief Enlivens the bones from joyful repose
With haunting cold, With pleasant warmth,
The image forms. The image crumbles
He sees a feathered Serpent, He sees a Christ,
A Descending God, A Rising God
Ouroboros, Sceptred King,
Clasped by mighty talons that descend from nimbus With a sword’s sheen girded at the side,
The receiver falls over, The voice spreads below,
His landline is dead. Alive as thunder
The image is formed. The image crumbles
The Nebuchadnezzar magazine 
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