The Photograph
Elizabeth Hurt
Did you think what you bequeathed to me —
One final look that snapped a photograph,
Impressed a horrid blot
Effacing every thought of you?
I did everything for you!
Did you expect us to say goodbye,
Bow our heads and talk of God and remember you
How you were? And me?
To remember your melted smile and tears
When I'd come to stay awhile,
Our all-night talks, just you and I
Smoking cigarettes and drinking booze and coffee
Sequestered in your pine kitchen,
Strewn with clocks that registered Time –
Greenwich meantime, sidereal startime, And a
Canadian station that toned the passing Present –
Talks on how the world was doomed
(With Reds and Pinkos and those subversives in Congress)
That always turned to your stories of the past-
How we would steal out under the northern sky
And all your friends in the concentric spheres
To reckon our precise whereabouts —
You with your silly bubble sextant
And I from the hammock, hands clasped behind my head
Pick our midnight corn by flashlight beam
To shuck and eat with leftover tidbits and Ritz crackers;
You taught me how to eat brie cheese,
Popping it in before we smelled it —
I wqould have tried anything for you —
And giggled tears over Scrabble
(Remember your definition of a "phot?")
And all those days I felt safe, held
The world off arguing with you about politics –
About everything? You knew it all.
Mine years and seven months now. Do you care
If I forgive you? Mr. Caution himself
Were you; spent days teaching me to handle
A gun safely enough to suit yourself.
"Never go off half-cocked!" You with lists
Of things to do, particular tools
And special ways that things are done,
Embarrassing fussiness, irritating worry
Over imaginary threats to my well-being.
Damn the seriousness of this sublunary sphere
That overcomes the best of minds!
I tucked you in, kissed your cheek,
Said "Good night, I love you" ... but something . . .
There hung a moment, your pain forgotten,
Something ... in your steady eye that held me,
A pause reluctant to free my hand
(Wasn't I giving you half of my life?)
And a ghost report still echoes, echoes, echoes . . .
And you were exchanged for a folded flag.
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