Beautiful Glitch

Four flashes.
One strip.
Beautiful glitch.

Four flashes.
One strip.
Beautiful glitch.
(that's not my face)

Arcade photo booth, end of the pier,
three pounds for four faces of yourself.
Slot jammed twice. The stool's too low.
The curtain smells of nineteen summers.
I went in to kill the last of a birthday
nobody had made a fuss of,
did my four poses — brave, braver, silly, honest —
chin up for the ones nobody would see —
and waited for the strip in the wind.
The machine whirred long. Coughed. Thought about it.
Printed like it was signing something.
And there we were — both of us.
My grin, and behind the curtain-gap,
the guy from the queue, mid-laugh, double-struck,
ghosted into every single frame
like the booth had made a decision.
I checked the curtain. Empty. Sea wind.
Him at the railing, unaware, eating chips,
completely innocent of being
the best photobomb of my life.
Gulls heckling the chip situation.
The big wheel turning its slow opinion.
The strip drying in my hand like a verdict
I hadn't known I was waiting on.

Machines aren't supposed to matchmake.
Circuits aren't supposed to flirt.
But the strip came out in my hand
with a stranger developed in.

Beautiful glitch
(one in a million)
the booth printed you in all four frames.
Some errors you bin, some errors you keep —
my beautiful glitch.

Print it twice.
(keep one each)
Faulty booth.
(lucky us)

He knocked on the booth like it was a door.
"I think your photos have got me in them."
He said it like a man returning a wallet —
proud of the honesty, unsure of the contents.
We held the strip under the pier lights,
two strangers auditing a miracle,
heads together over the evidence,
He offered to pay for a reprint. I said no.
He offered me chips as damages. I said go on.
We ate them on the rail with the strip between us,
weighting it down with the vinegar.
We fed the machine three more pounds
and took four frames on purpose this time —
knees knocked together on the little stool,
the curtain doing its bad job of privacy —
his sunglasses on me, my birthday badge on him,
frame three ruined by both of us laughing at frame two,
frame four the one his mother has on her wall.
The booth purred like it was proud.

Machines aren't supposed to matchmake.
Circuits aren't supposed to care.
But somewhere in that wiring
something wanted us both there.

Beautiful glitch
(one in a million)
the booth printed you in all four frames.
Some errors you bin, some errors you keep —
my beautiful glitch.

Four flashes. Two strangers.
One machine with opinions.
Three pounds for the accident,
three more for the rest of it.

Here's the part I never told you:
I saw you in the queue before the flash,
and took ten seconds choosing my last pose,
hoping you'd still be there after.
The pier man says that booth's been broken for years —
eats coins, prints ghosts, he keeps meaning to fix it.
We gave him twenty quid to keep meaning to.
Some machines aren't broken. Some are early.

Beautiful glitch
(one in a million)
the broken booth that worked on us.
Some errors you frame, some errors you marry —
my beautiful glitch.

Four flashes.
(both of us)