Snap
From white the world fades
in, vision begins, of pleating
water, sand defined by sandaled
feet, by footsteps.
Toward the camera
a wind fixed.
In this dream's a ghost
far shore of ghost hotels
and trees tall tokens
of horizon.
Foreground, Mort and Beth
posed shortly to ride
on Mama's back, unsure
of what? Helen,
mother, propped herself
up on her stomach.
Paul wore a woolly jumper
like a little muskrat.
Grandma fading into
sky arrests his arm
as he hops.
august 1925 sunset
all day it's been in the seventies
hazy with small-boned breezes
arthur under the oaks drinks limeade
three poles spike the lake down
to the farthest ones the kids wade
they hang on kicking
pretending to swim
Grandma, hair pulled back,
wore a knit dress
that passed for bathing suit.
She looks from the camera,
blends with background.
Who is this picture of? Helen smiled
for the camera but is almost buried
by her children
staring straight at me
as into a window.
In Helen's house I look at the photo,
her mother long dead, and now Arthur;
children moved away and married.
The picture is so sharp I could be there,
even the distortions are believable,
monochrome and overexposed lake.
Depth. I might be Mort,
wild ears, buck teeth, the asking
look. The eyes are sharp linchpins.
I could hear the waves,
Paul singing, Oldsmobile horns
from across the lake.
I can't say
what I'm trying to say. Maybe
it is that in thirty years
that girl, Beth, will have a child,
and in twenty-five unimaginable more
he will see a photograph
about which he will try to write.
