mother

REMEMBRANCE OF A CORRECTED PAST



When poring over the yellowed photograph
of a radiant and beautiful woman,
bringing it to your lips, you play the alchemists,
changing its musty odor
into the heady fragrance of a tropical flower ...
When you close your eyes and see
the youngish looking man on her right,
bearing your features,
with that indefinable stare
which could be mistaken for a smile ...
You wish you were never bonn
to the most desirable of aIl madonnas,
for you know that she wouldn't have allowed you
to waste your breath or let your heart become
the seat of infinite oppression
You then flip the pages of the album
and consider the portrait of that same woman
posing before your lense half a century later
She is still handsome and in her grayish-green eyes
you read so much wisdom it burns your chest
like the most lethal of poisons,
Then again, you wish you were never born to a madonna