Old photos

How does she begin this year
the year that is her eightieth
will she remember how it was
to leave her
mother's womb
and become?

Who is this smiling child?
Where did she belong?
Will she travel far
or be a stay-at-home?

Her memoirs seem a pile
of long disposables and yet she clings
to all that past.

Yesterday, this morning
she filed another year into a binding
trying to tie herself
closer to all she has been and all attempts
to erase the bad bits
fail.

This week I have not written
I have fallen in love
with color

the color I can make
with the new pen
the magic of choice


the hand that I cannot quite control
weaves a strange pattern
on my delicate screen

I follow the trail
made by the silver pen
but in the end
strike close
and do not keep
this tenuous effort

Will it let me gain
that treasured sense
of control?
or will this tracing
disappear
forever
as the memory fades?