It’s easy to get carried away looking at what’s on the surface,
though I agree with you when you say it’s all in the details.
Truth is, all this one shows is a funky old farmhouse kitchen
with a linoleum floor, the burnt sienna of an August afternoon
filtering in through the window above an aluminum sink,
a baby boy in blue overalls on the flight deck of a high chair,
the ecstasy of a pan of brownies upon him, a single candle
at its center, plump feet dangling like two spools of thread,
stubby fingers doing a Jackson Pollock on the canvas
of his sunny face in a chocolate medium, while somewhere
Jimmy Carter is speaking out against racial segregation
and Steve Martin does a show with the arrow through his head.
But this was when you were still new and whole, before
time and circumstance both graced and unraveled you,
before you held this year’s photograph in your crooked hand
and saw your face illuminated by the prairie-fire on the cake.
Grey Sparrow Journal 