These are the pictures of family and friends
I've not seen for many years.
This gaunt, pale figured one, Ruth,
Died in her sleep, alone.
Don, here, brought his granddaughters
Feathered pheasant fantasies each fall.
And Harriet wasn't long enough in this world
For me to know at all; my father says
She would have been my friend.
And this is one that once I loved.
These hands, so gently
Cupped around a chiseled jaw
Belie the softness hidden behind
Eyes which see the world in ways
I should never know. These lips
Spoke years before their age when
Noting the middle-aged woman's gently
Spreading hips. And once this face
Was mine to gaze upon alone
Held separate by canoe struts
Cold canons and wintry vows.
He should be somebody's father by now,
But I hear he wakes in Munich
Dines in Rome and sleeps
In some old South African town.
What news then might you bring to him
That he wouldn't already know;
Perhaps that I am growing old
While waiting for him to slow.
