The Girl in the Photograph
looks almost wistful, face tilted
into the future, still
full of expectations and
optimism the year before
Kennedy is shot.
The girl in the photograph
is a stranger: pretty and unspoiled, younger
than the women I meet
in bars on Saturday nights,
a new bride in this year
she thinks of then
as a kind of culmination—
the end of the waiting
for the beginning
of the rest of her life.
Wearing a flannel housecoat,
the girl in the photograph
has risen late
on a Sunday morning, maybe,
sits at the table
unconcerned, her right hand
poised to cut into a more tangible
future: french toast and conversation
with her husband, an officer
in the Air Force.
Through the doorway behind her,
a brand-new baby grand
displays the accoutrements
of domestic life: metronome, vase
of flowers, framed wedding portrait.
The photograph of the girl
is so pristine
that for a moment I imagine
it’s a window, one I can almost lean
into—if I can just get close
enough—to tell her
about the multiple separations
and redundant divorces, property
settlements, the long tug-of-war
of custody suits and child support.
I would tell the girl
in the photograph not to give up
her music for anyone. Rescue her,
if I could, from the small
library of self-help books
and prescriptions for lithium
lying in wait for her. I would whisper
a warning to her, somehow: Get out.
Get out! It’s not too late
to save yourself, Mother.
Etchings, vol. 8, no. 1 (1996)
