The Picture Poem by kathy koppang

The picture of a three year old
Sat proudly in the hall.
A smile of pure innocence,
Her world was safe and small.
The portrait of her seven, mounted crooked on the wall.
With little front teeth missing, a smile not so big.
Yet very proudly holding her very favorite doll.
So very unsuspecting at what was to begin.
The picture of her thirteen sat sedately in the den,
Her smile this time wistful, transition had set in.
The picture of her fifteen lay forgotten on the floor,
As her parents told her, of what would be no more.
How had they decided that this would be the day’
To sit her down between them and explain her world away.
There love had died and withered, not for her they quickly said.
They would share her love between them, just different now instead.
Now they would have there own lives, but what was hers to be?
She would be the nomad, forced to live from home, to home.
Her life was like a gypsy, always on the roam.
The picture of her sixteen showed a girl who’d learned to guard,
Memories of a childhood before her world had charred.
And on that sixteenth picture a small caption simply said
To both my loving parents, divorced is what it read.