All these photograph faces swimming bye
moments captured forever.
They laughed at the camera so alive,
and yet they were so frail
compared to these paper traces
they’ve left.
Each one I throw away hurts.
I think, that with a motion,
I may be disconnecting the last memory
of someone who loved,
someone whose blood flows in mine
someone with a lifetime of experiences
gone forever now…
because no one remembers their name.
I threw away a weathered envelope,
circa 1920, whose contents had been lost
in the photograph box’s mess.
I remember there was written on it
‘Via con Dios’ in someone’s handwriting.
And then there was Rosemary; my mother’s sister.
I felt grief when I read this child’s card,
who is dead now these 40 years
when she writes from the hospital
that she’ll be home soon
in a child’s scrawl.
But she never returned.
Barely begun … and then done.
And when I drop this card
into the trash,
washed away forever.
I threw that card away three times
and took it back again.
12 Mar 1983
San Juan Capistrano
— Copyright 1965-2008 by Dennis Gallagher —