Photos

They are a multitude numbering
the days of your life as indispensable
to memory and affairs of your heart
as each of the living souls that look
back at you captured by the camera
lens when you directed the theatrics
of a pose and when spontaneous snaps
were taken at the most inauspicious of
times to record and record and record
and then as incidents faded in time
tucked deep in the furthest recesses of
memory set aside and the images so
neatly captured in photographs grew
in number while dimmed in the past
until on impulse retrieved surprising
you with the sudden jolt of acquaintance
as recognition and yearning tugged 
loose the memories and that which was
lived returns to dredge tears from a
place of mourning you hardly knew
might even exist to live another day.