Birthday Cake

 In the photograph there are nine crew-cut heads

Clustered together like billiard balls,

Nearly as smooth:

It was 1962 and they were 8 years old.  Hair came later.

They gaze upward, backward, sideways

At the unseen camera

With red-tinted irises and silly-wide grins,

Chocolate frosted mouths blurred by uninterrupted shouting.

 

In the center is what remains of the birthday cake,

Shattered parts strewn across paper plates and tabletop

Like ancient temple ruins,

Or like space debris, the cake an exploding star

Hurling giant crumbs, plastic forks, and soiled napkins to the outskirts of the universe.

Beneath it, cut off at the waist by the snapshot’s bottom edge,

The boys’ other halves vanish into the breach between 1962 and this minute--

Vietnam, Gulf War, Age of Recession, so much more.

 

History shrinks to nine clamorous faces

Frozen in orbit around a crumbled center,

Future failings traced in shadows on golden skin,

Red-shifted eyes blazing an aching light  

Toward a lens poised in absent hands.

In past tense, gazes flatten--

Emptied of content, sightlines obscured--

And disappear into lost picture albums and the corners of forgotten drawers.

Only the destroyed cake keeps its identity intact:

White cake with chocolate frosting,

Once a favorite.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Let Me Spend More Time Making up Animals

  Let Me Spend More Time Making up Animals   Let me spend more time making up animals. For instance, the brick spider, Which emerges from the red dust of the brickyard To spin webs that resemble Victorian houses. Or the pony that fits in your hand But can still hold a full-sized rider on its back. The tiger-striped hippopotamus that can fly, though not fast, Its wings made of skin the color of butter. Or an aquatic creature that’s a cross between a turtle and a snake, Slim and with a shell that’s pliable like a reed When it turns belly upward and slides headfirst beneath the water’s trembling surface.   All these creatures could exist in a world that possesses the perfect balance Nature seeks, Strives for but can’t achieve Because we keep fucking things up, Interfering with its internal processes and mangling its machinery, Transplanting the wrong species everywhere. But just let me restore things to the way they should be And eventually we’ll have squirrels that light up...
Read more

October Stroll

  October Stroll   And then it was October. Out for an afternoon stroll, The sun so yellow in my eyes, they sting. I’ve left my shades behind in the car. My keys sing in my pocket. Nope, I’m not turning around. Not going back. Light, anneal my eyeballs.   The autumn boulevards are full, Intersections intersecting, Multitudes of changing heights and widths and colors of hair Wheeling around each other Like comets, like yo-yos. The air is spiced with smell and sound, So crisp it tinkles like glasses on a tray, And everything is warming on low, lightly wrapped in foil.   My head says to my hat, I’m not walking this way for nothing, Purpose, reveal yourself, And a green-red shadow drops from a limb, Plops at my feet (Just missing the hat brim). Ripe crabapple on the sidewalk, The beginning of my new fortune.   Do I use M apQuest to tell me which street to turn on? If I knew the way, I wouldn’t need to go. But just like that, aches begin behind the knees In spaces ...
Read more

Reflections on Amsterdam (Anne Frank House)

  Reflections on Amsterdam (Anne Frank House)   It’s not enough to stand on the bridge And look down into the canal, You want to jump over the side and swim in the water, Brown but clean, reflecting the sad beauty of old buildings.   It’s not enough to bend your head back and look up at the tower, You want to climb to the top of it, Hands grabbing the rough stones to pull yourself up one foot at a time Until you stand at the summit, Looking out over canals like the veins in your arms Running out to the sea.   It’s not enough to enter the church And gaze at the paintings, the stained-glass windows, The organ and the nave, All done in crazy rich splendor, You want to preach in the church, Stand in the pulpit, raise your arms and shout Until every head turns your way, Every ear is filled with the sound of your voice.   It’s not enough to enter the house at Westermarkt 20, The Anne Frank House, where she lived with others in secret, Hiding in vain from imponderable ...
Read more