The Little Photoshop Of Horrors. Poem by Dan Reynolds

There is a little corner in a sepia coloured shop
that hides a silhouette inside the grain,
A sobbing child is briskly making headway with her mop
as countless customers insist on dragging in the rain.

They only see the shopkeeper, his wares upon the shelves
and hope to see no more than what they need.
Like most, they've no desire to see much farther than themselves.
Like most, they don't associate this blinkered trait with greed.

I scanned this ancient photograph, which I had thought so quaint.
Not knowing, seeing, sensing what it hid.
When lightening the contrast, saw a face, at first so faint.
But sharpening the focus was the worst thing that I did.

You see, two hundred years or so had covered o'er the cracks
that now creep through my family's history.
The chains and shackles on such children, birch scars on their backs.
Some times we don't like what we see, when software solves the mystery.