MUSINGS #68 - Negative Space appearing in Coal City Review 40:2018
Negative Space
making a photo album of my mother
None of her dancing mother
who abandoned her –
threatened by
her budding beauty.
None of her first love
shot down in the war –
photos burned by a husband
haunted by his fiery ghost.
None of her first child
older than the age of two –
born blind
and dying of cancer.
None of her as grieving
widow. His absence no
mere gap in chronology –
but a chasm.
None of her, lonely and hurt
by our tug at the strings
she wound
to hold us close.
None of her
these last eighteen years –
no way to capture
the image of a ghost.