So many pictures: small
\nblack and white or sepia,
\nfastened to the heavy black pages.
\nThe pretty young woman
\nin the patterned wool swimming costume
\nlounging against the stone seawall was my mother.
\nEighty-two years ago
\nshe could smell the salt
\nhear the breeze in the tall grass;
\nnow each blade of grass
\nis as distinct as her dark nail lacquer
\nher dark curved lips.
\nThe hue of the grass or the lacquer
\nor her lost dark lips
\nis a secret
\nas impenetrable as the identities
\nof many of her friends
\nin the other pictures.
\nWhy they had gathered that day
\nworn those elegant clothes
\nposed so jauntily
\nso comfortably
\nis lost.
\nWhere are the stories, Mother?
\nA marble slab above your head
\nis as final as the silence
\nof these pictures
\ntelling a story I can never hear.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
NaPoWriMo Day 4: I examine an old photograph album that my mother assembled before I was born. (#1055) Continue reading