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