The Darkroom

Lyrics

Down. Not the grand staircase, but the other one.
The air changes first. The scent of beeswax and lemon oil gives way to damp stone.
Past the threshold of The Back Hall, where ghosts of errands still hurry.
Down into the body of the house.
The electric hum from The Laundry is a memory of Monday mornings, a rhythm of steam and bleach.
A whisper of soot from the mouth of The Coal Chute Room, a darkness that stained the air for fifty years. 
Then, this door. No knob, just a wooden latch, and a thin red smile bleeding from the bottom crack.
Here, light is forbidden so light can be born.
Here, silver sleeps in paper until the chemistry wakes it.
Here, time is a liquid you pour from a bottle.
A face surfaces from the white, a ghost arriving.
The red safelight paints everything in the color of a wound, or a womb. 
The enlarger clicks, a mechanical eye projecting a world that isn't there yet. A latent truth.
First, the developer. I slide the blankness in. 
Come now, shadow. Emerge, contour. Show me the cheekbone from 1934, the collar on a dress she wore only once. 
It is a patient magic. It is a controlled haunting. The image breathes in the solution.
Here, light is forbidden so light can be born.
Here, silver sleeps in paper until the chemistry wakes it.
Here, time is a liquid you pour from a bottle.
A face surfaces from the white, a ghost arriving.
The scent of acetic acid is a sharp, silver line drawn across the dark.
On the drying line, a single print has hung for decades. An empty hallway. Always just the hallway.
But tonight, in the tray, I am developing that same hallway, and in its reflection on the polished floor, I can see this room, this red light. I see myself, watching.
A process inside a process. A memory of a memory being made.
The face is complete now. Her eyes are open.
She looks out from the fixer bath, permanently caught between two worlds.
The water trickles.
The red hums.
And I hang her up to dry with the others.