here: I will be gentle, dare I say

like your mother. The photo lies, proving

only coaxed and unlucky spoonfuls

of cold Spaghetti. Pouted lips stained

by stubborn tries, the same force

that snatched his small wrist one afternoon

in the carpark. He screamed, I screamed

We must be careful and I cannot

believe the mark of worry or was it fear? His own

mother asking What did you get up to this afternoon?

I tell myself there is no way he will remember

the taste of tomatoes wielded by my hand,

the color of my hair, or each time I struggled

to boost his chin to the window

saying look, a birdie: what does a photo hold

but what we could lift to that fleeting?

Snapshot, a weak post

to tie anything to. Flash, just that:

I set the child down and pick up

the stare of gaunt cherubs, captured

by black-and-white-forever-

captioned: Children sit in a tea room

with a nun posing for a photo. Looming

Sister in the corner, she is a moon

unphased. Impervious witness. Habit

whiter than the very mug and saucer set

before the hollow child. Cup an empty

bell, each shoe a small clapper ringing

in the girl-mother’s ear. Absent

from the frame, could she ever look

back? The ragged news-clipping fades,

weak tea, bad promise of gentle. Sun thinning

newsprint to gauze, a salve wrapped around

her hand, ripped so impossibly raw.