In This Photograph

It sounds better when I read it out loud, I think, but I figured I would post it here anyway since I like it a lot.  I like to think of it as a sequel to the other photograph poem I wrote at camp even though they're based on two totally different photographs--for instance, one of the photos is made up and one of them actually exists.  Anyway, here goes:

In This Photograph

These photos that I hold

are not this time yellow

or greyed or blued

or torn around the edges

or folded hundreds of times down the middle.

They are pink and new just printed

now but they are full of moments

and memories that couldn’t

ever grow old.

They are full of us

over and over and over again

us

together apart

they are still our moments

mementos of our time together.

My favorite one is beautiful

it too is pink even though it

shouldn’t be.

See there I stand looking down

at my papers concentrating

and there you are down at the bottom

looking up at me

listening to me read

and explain my story

and you look as though you are 

the only one there

listening.

The chalkboard behind me is empty

and now on it, I write my thoughts

and my fears and my desires

and at that platform I stood

and I recited them all to you

through the story of another

and we are not so different.

We may not be so pretty or brilliant

but together we stand

united by our separation

in this photograph

a memory of what I never knew but miss anyway.

Needs a title...

I wrote this around October (?) but found it today and decided to publish... it's a little prosey and about an uncomfortable encounter.

In the Ks
my breath stopped
and I knew I was so near there's a copy I've seen it.
Fingertips grip the shelf,
nails nervously flick
dust
off paperbacks.
I am too distracted to sneeze.
The novel slides out...
This is not my Unbearable Lightness, it couldn't be here,
but the words are the same.
Lonely words.
It isn't mine but it's part of me.
Shakily restored,
I trust the metal ladder and indulge in one
just one
chapter, where I left off.
It feels fulfilling but-
Now my volume is crammed back on the shelf with the Ks.
I say something irrelevantly to Dad and
dollars are traded for poetry and
I escape to hot Jackson Street,
thoroughly confused.