She was the kind of beautiful that tricked your ears into shutting out the songbirds and turning up the traffic, and you swore she could punch holes in the concrete with her heels. You only ever saw the world through a camera eye, and she would fill the frames off-center, the way peripheral vision is black and white, the way she combed her hair to one side of her head and added an inch to her eyes in black pencil, the way she would glance at old men smoking in cafés when she knew she was being watched. She loved being framed in 35mm, felt free trapped in a lens held in steady hands with an impartial stance. She was the kind of beautiful that pulled your focus for a moment, then rounded a corner, and was gone.

9:50 pm  •  24 September 2012