Stories Untold

I was looking at old black and white photos recently, many of them uncaptioned so I had to guess who was who and where they were …

STORIES UNTOLD

I wonder whose houses
stand against smiling skies                
whose eyes close
against flash bulbs
hide behind veiled hats

what stories twist
behind black and white
billow from mouth
to caption     fragment
against baptismal record
flirt with marriage lines
to become tales told
by my mother when dusk
turns the pages

A

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A Bedroom of Searchlights’: poetry. This collection draws a picture of the poet’s divorced mother, an artist with two children, who struggled with poverty, war, and the realities of daily life, yet still found beauty and comfort in her garden, and her art. From Inanna Publications, 2016.