Untying The Apron by Glenn Lorri Neilsen

Author:Glenn Lorri Neilsen [Neilsen, Lorri]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: History, Mothers, daughters, family
ISBN: 9781550717297
Publisher: Guernica Editions Inc
Published: 2014-07-19T16:00:00+00:00

The Forward Look

The Girls in the Snapshot

for my mother

Janet Barkhouse

Both lie on their bellies, laugh into the camera,

a Brownie Box, just outside

the frame. Green grass shows through last year’s

stubble. You can see it’s green though the photo is sepia, can see

the girls’ glossy hair is brown, their eyes hazel.

One of the girls lies almost flat,

only her face up—she’s reaching

forward with a rough alder stick in her hand, the stick

she just this second touched to the shutter release.

She’s seventeen. It’s a birthday picnic,

a sparkling May 3, 1930, Uncle Scott’s pasture

up the North Mountain. Salt tickles the air—

at the foot of the cliff behind them

waves whisper ashore, ashore.

Later they’ll build a fire, cook bacon on that stick,

talk about final exams, Provincials, last days

in the Big Part of their two-room school.

Peer into flames that flare and smoke—

they’ve never been anywhere

but ordinary here; thrilling there awaits them.

Hold these girls in the cup of your hand, skin

thin as the paper they lie on. Your hand

is old, you know

what they don’t. Hold them

tender and sepia green.

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