Family Photograph
This is an old family photograph of my grandmother taken on the day of her wedding. It was considered a reject because the girl in the foreground moved as the picture was taken. I thought the flaw added to the image; it made the girl look like a ghost. I put in white dots to symbolize a thought or an afterimage, otherwise the photo is just as it was.
The photograph inspired my poem,When Grandmother Died. Parts of the poem are true, but mostly it paints all I imagine.
Note: The video below the poem includes my narration.
When Grandmother Died
She complained about bed sheets
that encumbered her thinking,
then raised up her arms
as if floating on water.
She spoke in a childish rhyme,
a girl who was kicked by a horse,
a boy with one moment he kept
in a hole in his pocket.
She offered us pennies for thoughts,
asked about neon
when eyes were closed tight.
She gurgled her words in her throat,
but in the last minutes
before she let go
her voice was a yellow cat
purring for milk.
She said that her sister died
much too young,
then she spoke about Grandpa,
the Victorian hat
she wore at their wedding,
how she sensed that her sister
stood by her side, tugging
her dress for attention.
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