Tom Kim

The Kodak Vigilant Junior Six-16
Smells like an old set of encyclopedias
Whose photos have the technicolor hues
Of another decade. Once you take in
The heft and look peculiar to all old things,
You’ll find the metal bump that slides
To swing out the entire back of the camera.
And there, with the back lifted off,
Stares a startling eye embedded in pleats of vinyl,
Folded like the compressed neck
Of a jack-in-the-box.
A little label, like a drawn stamp,
States it takes 616 Film, which, evidently
Is like a roll of postcards,
Judging by the spindles on either side of
The packed lens.

There’s a metal button you push
And pop open the front lid with,
Which folds out on hinged braces
The lens and its accordian neck.
You open and close the front lid
Several times, craning out the eye
Again and again–
It folds out gracefully,
The way a snake strikes,
Or a stork might peer out a door.

From the back
It looks like a house of cardboard staircases
Climbing to a small window of light,
An empty ziggurat
Of aged vinyl.