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The photographer's hallway
The photographer likes to keep
her apartment uncluttered so hangs every picture she ever buys in the hallway and hosting a party finds she can only relax when her last guest has left the apartment empty again. Standing in the hall with her last guest she finds she actually wants to talk — ‘we might call the hallway a hail-way’ — detaining her guest by using the pictures as ‘conversation pieces’. She keeps her there for half an hour and still it seems her guest leaves in a hurry deterred perhaps by her come-hither eyes, though once home the guest dreams not of her come-hither eyes but the ‘with’ withheld a hallway out of reach, the recurring melting of a chronic glacier. Meanwhile the photographer remains awake, unable to sleep not only while there are dishes to wash and put away, cushions to return to their places, but while there are still pictures in the hallway — suddenly she finds the hall too much of a receptacle, determines to stack everything that was on display away in rows on the floor of her cavernous wardrobe.
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