The Sort
Another box of pictures one’s to sort,
Decades lost in the attic … a light cough
Of separation, instinctual pause
Of action, by those who say little
Of themselves, captors unmarked, unnamed
By the sweet curving hand of late Aunt June,
Who at a glance of rippled-edged rectangles
Would have penned a phonebook of relations.
Had tried this years before with Cousin May.
‘Oh yes,’ she said, ‘the tenth birthday party.’
‘Party,’ you reply, ‘whose, where but when?’
‘Don’t you remember,’ she said, ‘you were three
By then. Any others you have to share?
Oh, the fresh corn, the cake, the tooting horn,
Tooting horn,’ she repeats. There would be time, still’
Was thought, as bells rang for her evening meal.
Perhaps `60’s lips fixed in a half-smile,
Half lifted, cheeks still pressing heavily;
Had that open-jawed one just made fun of Frank,
Or had he been shipped out to go and fight?
Oh, the cast of caskets, both freshly closed,
Loaded with so many shades of gray bloom
And open ones, angle so acute—frown,
Or smile or steady, fixed contemplation?
Perhaps careful note of resemblances,
That face and this eye are much alike … re-
Arranged, but no harm intended. One
Yet peacefully dreaming, generations
Deeper, his needed rest jarred by concern
That this blood-red hand handle too tightly.
‘Aren’t we worth white-glove care? We fear the oils
Of caring touch that becloud our present.’
* * *
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More from Don Moss: BEFORE HOPPER: Don Moss’s “We See That The Artist…”, POEM: Don Moss’s “Hawkeye” (for Joel P.), Poetry on Film: Don Moss’s PRO SE