-the posing / 1934

consider a photograph; a snapshot taken

during the courtship of my father and mother.

they’re sitting on a couch in a room which

resonates with me even now. he’s seventeen. she’s sixteen.

how do I know this? because the photo is dated

on the backside, and because I know the year

of their births I can calculate their ages, and this

from a man who as a kid seemed alien to arithmetic

unless I’m miscalculating everything I'm assuming now.

but I’m not, so let’s continue. of course they’re fooling around! 

they'll easily find themselves far from the family interiors.

he has access to a car. he’s adventurous, a handsome young man

well into the edge of exploration. she’s lovely, she's reserved, and

at the edge of curiosity. her glance tells you she's well-aware of how

she hooked the big one from the Walyos on the corner of Bedford

and Stinziano. It's not difficult to imagine where they'd go

when they slipped away on their way to exploration.

ah..the little unpaved road along the Narrows of the sprawling Watuppa,––

a place known only to them and others of their kind, the same as it was

with us. sneaky. but–– I can chart the direction of his hand navigating

toward its destination. I can sense the activity of her breath as

the applications came to her skin.

I know the reasons why the dark confessionals were tossed

to the ash-bins when all of us began to realize a thing or two.