I Dream I Meet Irene McKinney at the Ruined House of the Photographer

Step inside, the air is heavy wet

newsprint or scent of vinegar, walls

graffitied and barely lit. It’s time to go.

I tell her what she means to me, or try.

Quick as spit she pulls us up the stairs,

carpeted in the casings of beetles age-soft.

Birds cry, sweep through smother of twig and leaf.

Whole floors heave, her foot is past the landing;

some treads hold nestlings, some snakeslick.

At any moment I might falter, fall through,

hide my face, manage to bark, “no more,”

as she hauls us, winded, into a room

of portraits. She doesn’t blink or look aside:

she’s like their subjects, like the open bureau,

a room hidden in a house, called on at last,

windows thrown wide for years to catch this light.