after a photo triptych by Agafia Polynchuk
Panel I.
It is a slice, but not
sauce and cheese and toppings.
Rather, it is nutty bread slathered
in icings, sugar-frosted,
gripped in her petite right hand
bare of bracelets, nails natural
not even painted sheer. In this and the next:
her eyes are cropped out.
Panel II.
She crams the portion in-
to a cupid’s bow, a glossy cerise
red mouth. From the side, the slice must collide
with teeth but in the frame teeth are hidden
by the hearty bite.
It is not the food the viewer devours:
short dark hair, a red white-dotted dirndl,
a flowery ivory blouse whose
neckline blooms into a tulip-petaled necklace,
a buckshot of brown buttons down the bodice
cut-off by the dark table’s veneer surface.
Four small white lights to her right,
to her left as if this was a demonstration or show.
For the benefit of whom? Are we the apple
nowhere present? The watchful prince?
The witch? In which role or none
are we complicit?
Panel III.
Her disappearance a presence of hunger
long after. The viewer can hear
the mmm. Also, the hmm. On the plate
three final bites. She hasn’t finished.
Melanie Faith holds an MFA from Queens University of Charlotte, NC. Her writing has been nominated three times for the Pushcart Prize. She is a writing tutor at a college preparatory high school in rural Pennsylvania and an online creative writing instructor. Her WWII-themed poetry chapbook, Catching the Send-off Train, was published by Wordrunner eChapbooks as their summer 2013 selection. Her poems, essays, and fiction have been published in the past year at Vermillion Literary Project, Linden Avenue, Aldrich Press, The New Writer, Foliate Oak, Origami Poems Project, Star 82 Review, and Words Dance. She’s written two children’s picture books in 2013.
Agafia Polynchuk is a Berlin based photo artist. She was born in 1988 in Leningrad. In 2010 she bought her SX-70 camera and took her very first polaroid picture. She can’t stop to taking polaroids ever since. Agafia is inspired by nature, classical works, and everyday things. She visualizes her thoughts, feelings and memories through self-portraits. Visit her online at Flickr and Facebook.