Old Photo Albums Poem by Liilia Talts Morrison

Cardboard jewels twist around dried petals
On black frayed pages, gray with age
Little babies in stiff starched bonnets
Perch on laps of stern parents
Whose eyes are stark and cold..
Sad sleepless eyes look out from
Timeworn tin types

Musty silver frames hold
Lace hearts as women
with huge brimmed hats
Hold their breaths in waspy waists
Hydrangea bushes hide
a cottage made in style of
Bat on board.

Who is that man standing in the front?
Why he died a week later
In that very house.
He was smiling
Just as if he would live forever.

She, the one with the white summer dress
with butterflies and long tresses
perished in a fire at eighteen.
Mother told me many storie4s.
How many stories remained
Never to be told?

What about that face scratched out
In the picnic photo of a dozen
people on a sunny lawn
next to a cool forest?

Yesterday's pictures haunt.
A child holds a golden cup
While an older sister
eats a piece of chocolate.
Their laces prove their wealth.
What about the sad faced boy
With tight, high laced shoes.
Did they hurt?

Cardboard jewels, dried rose petals
Whisper very quietly.
If you listen, they will tell you
'There are answers in old photographs.'