tarnished silver · gelatin print · drawing-room mantel
hallmarked, sheffield, 1911. the silver has not been polished in a long time; the family stopped polishing it the year that one of the two figures in the photograph died, and could not start again. the tarnish is itself, by now, a form of memorial.
two figures stand close together. neither is named on the back; the writing on the backing card has bloomed with damp and is unreadable. the custodian can guess at the season from the light and at the year from the cut of one coat.
it sits on the drawing-room mantel at an angle, as if turned slightly away from the door. nobody remembers turning it. it has been at that angle for at least a decade.
field-note a silver frame ages with the room. it does not need cleaning; it needs witnessing.