Hissing of the Universe

© Tim Gallo.

I’ve been thinking about how a naked woman reminds me of a spiral seashell — how it suddenly becomes alive and magical when you put it close to your ear. How it reflects the sea in all of us with whisper-like sounds, the waves slowly beating on invisible rocks of imagination.

All magical and romantic things are honest and “naked” in their nature. But as seashell needs an ear to reveal the hissing of the universe, so a naked woman needs an observer, a poet who will hiss her into poetic form.

I try to talk about those things to her, but she cuts me abruptly:
Stop talking, baka… crests a hill of my impatience, and I almost instantly finish a roll of film.

© Tim Gallo.

Now. There is nothing to record on to. How can I prove that the moment existed? How can a poet sing without words? How can photographer praise without pictures? I rush to rewind and change filme.

While I do so, she sits soundlessly, staring nowhere. As if… she fulfilled her role. But then I point my camera at her again and the universe pours, pulses, and make waves again…