The Fiddlehead, Number 123 (2)

Herewith, the latest selection from dusted-off published poetry and short fiction, circa 1970s vintage and beyond....

Snapshots

There they are
in neat black and white
and decked like cards.
First those of the
children loping wide-legged,
snowshoeing through the ravine
and down the frozen riverbed.

There's one with bare treetops
as though arrested in surprise
that anyone would be so silly
as to fall backward
intent on taking pictures.

Another, your son's mouth
round with anger,
you plaguing him with your
'stand right there
... and look natural'.

And then your daughter,
wearing the apples of your eyes
on her cheeks,
weaving filaments of hair
over her face to hide
from the lens.

c. 1979 Rita Rosenfeld
published in The Fiddlehead, Fall 1979