Like twins
Whose cells never
Separated in the womb
So conjoined are
These virus days
Endlessly strung
In the back and
The forth. Last January
Unreal memory
Of what we did
Were allowed to do
The future, then
Clear before us
Evaporated by now
Between isolation
And masks
You ask
What will be.
sepia
in photography
you’re still alive,
one young and wiry,
beautiful, the other
her long hair coiffed,
bouffant above the brows
in sepia forever frozen
both the soprano
and the baritone.
past your frames
my path leads every day
but rarely do I focus
on the woman or the man
my parents captured
too in kodak-color.
so loving was your voice
so rare on paper, too afraid
that seven years
of schooling only
might yield mockery
how precious now
the cursive speaks
to the “little one, beloved
and so far away”
whose heart crossed
oceans every day.
and so I linger and reflect
head bent over words
– more valuable to me
than gold – and stand before
your pictures that once
will perish until nothing
shall remain of us.
© beatrix brockman
