Live Snapshots
by Odin Roark
 
Click – Kid time.
 
Waxy paper,
cartooned respite,
chewy pink,
bubbles small,
messes big,
“don't you be blowin' them,
your brows be shaved,”
daunted mother,
stubborn child.
 
Click – Teen time.
 
Driver's license,
double feature drive-in,
windows open,
friends in next car,
cuddle up seats,
brown bagged cherries,
stems to pull,
pits to suck clean,
stomach aches ignored,
paper peeled straws,
blowgun ammo,
shot between cars,
shoring up boredom,
while girlfriend gazes at
Jimmy Dean's red jacket,
up there four stories tall.
 
Click – Grown-up training.
 
Makin' it on his own.
Lonely brownstone.
Central Park always dark.
Mailed letters few,
bill collectors many,
pay or else,
notice this,
notice that.
Oops.

The draft notice.
They say
three squares a day,
see the world,
'til you don't.

Click - Battlefields
 
Dark storms rain down shrapnel,
brain entangled,
sunrise smoke ruined,
nature hides,
evil's time.
 
Click – Post-war
 
Smiles,
smiles,
door to door,
Kirby vacuums rule,
used car,
crazy wife,
crazier life.

Click – Self-pity
 
Jack is good,
Smirnoff bad,
mirrors in front,
noise in back,
cacophonous shoe-worn peanut shells below,
stubby pencil upon napkins write,
verse or prose,
doesn't matter,
rewrapping
neat packages those, 'til…
 
'til glad hand extends,
binds me in different wrappings,
dust jacket dreams,
mailbox stays empty,
only more glad hands,
pay-to-play.
   
Click - Aging
 
One day an old Shep appeared,
squatting neat packages
for me to pick up,
bag and seal,
while we walk the walk,
bark the talk,
shuffle left,
shuffle right, 
staying straight ahead getting harder.
 
Click - Acceptance
 
Aging breath's final neat package,
patiently waits to be wrapped.
 
But until then…
 
Click – He had a few snapshots still in him.