We live in photographs as ghosts: elongated shadows on the periphery of sunset panoramas, anonymous, disproportionate shades distended against backdrops of vacant space: extrusions, negations, two-dimensional impoverishments of form, allegories without a cave; memories to fade as soon as the sun sinks below the horizon and the world turns blue and gray—like a bruise, diffused, atomized, and rendered atmospheric—the sky awash in the colors of inflicted pain. Night will pass, and bruises fade, but memories—those phantoms haunting our peripheries—are far harder to escape

J. Lucas Hughes lives with his wife and two children on the Eastern Shore of Maryland, where he works in natural resource conservation. He is a singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and visual artist with a degree in philosophy. He is grateful for every person who takes the time to read his work.