Jan/Feb 2003 • Poetry • Special Feature |
The Album of Good
Inside the dusty album is who I am,
what people will see.
My heritage lives on every page.The picture of me in Mom's flowerbed:
I was three and had ripped apart her
chrysanthemums. How angry she was, but how
she laughed when she took my picture.The one of Dad and me in that raggedy, over-stuffed chair,
our heads bent in some kind of conspiracy. We dialed the massive
black telephone to talk with Grandma and Grandpa. I was ten.
Their voices crackled like bits of the china plate I broke that October.My high school graduation day: me wearing the ugly red robe
and awkward hat that kept falling off; the little flip of my hair.
My virginity lost to some drunk college boy. I don't remember
his name. The baby would have been seventeen now.Pictures make you realize how stupid you really were.
I wipe the black leather cover clean,
grateful no one can see my mistakes.