All these photograph faces swimming bye
moments captured forever
then…now.They laughed at the camera
so alive, and yet 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.
Someone who loved,
whose blood flows in mine
a lifetime of experiences
gone 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 general melee
and I remember there was written on it
‘Via con Dios’ is someone’s handwriting.12 Mar 1983
San Juan Capistrano
— Copyright 1965-2008 by Dennis Gallagher —