Sonnet Divided by Three Old Photos
by John Kendall Hawkins
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I have cracked, faded photos of black and white days --
iterations of a childhood long forgotten --
Missouri in the pre-lingual years now rotten,
past their shelf life, gone to seed in the mourning's rays.
Kodak newbie shots, haphazard frames poorly stored --
selfies you had to wait a week or more to see
(weren't worth waiting for), no Dorothea Lange spree
with gaunt stares or Depression-era smorgasbord.
.
.
A photo's a snap that captures a moment there
and the seer's seen, seen now through seeing by you
in a kind of lazy hyper-parallax view
that may or may not depict keep-it hope or fear.
.
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I will never look at these images again,
nor will you, reader. Close your eyes and count to ten.
