Flash (Another Alaska Photograph) #3

Imagine the time     / tones
/ the half-year's
shade and bright      / the decades
of family marriages

the grandkids obliquely
enter into —
the box and the hood —
the eyes and the face

and thin man     — hunched
by taking pictures —
until the cars are vanishing
/ and the faces

you see still look surprised —
finding themselves
the coast's fruit groves
and northern forests!

Until it is you     / not you —
and only this other
moment then     — and only
these woods

/ where two are asked to sit
and seem to matter —
too neat we must think —
or at least

we have begun to     — where
she     / where you —
if not exactly now     — sit
wondering     — taking

the changes on     — the feel
of muskeg
/ fallen trunk     — the magic
they share

in northern mealtimes
and winter ales —
in Alaska summering —
with birds at her feet

and garden fare     — a moment
before the rains
make something else
of holidays

/ before a man who loves
the northern cold
can feel it.

 

© Appetite (2)