TENEMENT CHERUB

She would stare at herself in the photo often, catching her own infant gaze behind the glass frame. Her eyes appeared separate to the ruddy cheeked tenement cherub that peered from behind an iron grill, as though it stared into a future it was unprepared for. Such was its frozen expression that she had the impression of staring at herself in a moment that made no physical sense. As though time's arrow soared concurrently. It was possible that multiple generations, infinite generations could span a single moment. Babies were born and grew old, bore children of their own, all the time breathing the same air molecules, consuming the same carbons. Alive and dead in one moment.

She understood there was a greater power in the photograph than composition alone.