Family Snapshot

A Family Snapshot

Unruly child sits alone atop her mountain slide,

on a dead autumn any day of childhood.

Shy smile and scraped palms

proof of her exposure to the black and white world.

Portraits of “good,” “should,” be quiet” and “sit still.”

Her instinct is to tumble forward but she will sit frozen,

hair blowing, eye’s squinting against the wind,

until the photographer is satisfied.

She has begun to fear the negative.

Enough to curb the impulses that drive her

with headstrong distraction each day.

Slide!

There is no time to pose with dainty hands

and shadow smiles. Wide grins and hard fun

will keep the scrapes from turning into the hard calluses

of the photographers hands.