For the second time this week, he plugs in the external drive
He clicks through his archive to find the folder he needs
He knows this path well
He was bored with himself, tired of the routine
Free Live Cams left him limp
The sounds of commerce, a complete turnoff
And the films these days, with their surgery scars and bad tats
And it's all stepmoms and stepsisters now
What the fuck's all that about?

So ends another clockwork day
Of worn out luck and waning click
The last awake, a door shut time
So ends another clockwork night

No, he needed something real
And now he knows where to find it

IMG4329, the flushed flesh of new love in summer
The curtains drawn, the sun secluded and a gift that fits
IMG4378, fastening the strap of a sharpened shoe on a hotel table
The puckish promise of a bended knee
IMG4398, a borrowed hoodie and a bruised thigh
The absent eyes of afternoon afterglow
And the suspense of more to come
IMG4457, wearing nothing but a new postcode
Statuesque on the bedspread plinth in reddened room
As family smiles from fresh IKEA frames
IMG4564, the sleeping Venus in a half-painted kitchen
As hopeful spermatozoa race to an oval's open arms
IMG4382, an intimate closeup of a solitary act
Sent like a love letter long long ago

Secretly sated once again
He softly ascends to the bedroom
And slips gently under covers to join a snoring spouse
In the almost dark, she's hardly aged a day
When he removes his glasses
She looks just the same as she does in the pixels of those old JPEGs
Those low-res memories buried in folders within folders