You took my head
Fiction by Alan Dunnett
You took my head and placed it beside another's. My head grew heavy so I lay on my cheek. With my left hand, I held the other head upright. This other head was more still than me. Its lips were stitched fast. It seemed to hold some small thing in its mouth. Its lower lids were drawn up as if in sleep.
Then I thought: not sleep, but consideration. Its hair was tightly arranged, like fingers. You said your camera would take my soul. Under the circumstances, a bad joke, I felt. I resisted the captivity of each shot, its suspending of animation. I held this other head and gave it instruction. If you are the sleeper, then I must wake and watch.
after 'Noir and Blanche', 1926. A Photograph by Man Ray.
Previously published in Across the Margin.
Alan Dunnett has a collection from Graft Poetry forthcoming. A chapbook, Snuff One’s Glim, was published by Livor Mortis Zine, 2024. Poems have also appeared in Acumen, Books Review of Books, London Grip New Poetry, Life and Legends, Dark Poets Club, Ink Sweat & Tears, The High Window, Stand, The Rialto, The New European. Film-poem Assassin awarded a 2020 Best Rhythm & Poetry for Berlin Deadline at Berlin Underground Film Festival. Film-poem Interrogation was Best Experimental Film at the Verona International Film Festival 2019. A collection, A Third Colour, was published by Culture Matters in 2018.