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the Porch
The Pocket Photo

(for Christi Lyn)


There’s a picture in my wallet
Where angelic cries
Dangle the moon and
Teach the sun to shine;

We danced
and twirled, and giggled,
to the songs of Edmunds
and the Q;
we played on swings and slides,
and sat on moss-covered rocks,
eating Krystals from a bag;

There’s a picture in my wallet
Where a hand clasps mine,
Pulling my dragging feet
Along a stumbling path;

I tied her shoes
in a single loop,
as she hummed a pretty song
from a book we’d read
the night before;
the stories stayed
in her head, waiting
to tell them again,
and again;

There’s a picture in my wallet
Where giggles rise and smile,
Perpetually filling my heart
With warm and milky breath;

We shopped at Big Lots,
And bought a plastic broom and mop;
she played and played
crying when
she had to put them away--
still makes me cry today.

There’s a picture in my wallet
Where life resides gently,
Feeding my troubled soul
With pure love unasked.

 

 


 

Phil Rice / Canopic Jar #13, 2004