Day 608

from a photograph


You could learn
every bone in the upper body
by studying this photograph
of a five year old boy.  Naked
from the waist up, his wrists
like twigs, shoulders like rods
his sticklike arms hang down from.
His face narrows from cheeks
to chin, comes to a point
like a dog’s
snipey muzzle. His eyes
stare at something
we can’t see in the photograph:
angry, fixed.  Is he able
to move them?  Can
he see? Can he turn
his head on that filament
of a neck?  Does he have
the strength?  The child
is five!  He looks
like ninety.  Older.
He looks
as though his life
has coursed through him,
rumbled over him, wrested 
from his rigid hands
history.  Memory.  Does his mouth
still open?  Can he
tell us the name
of the boy he was?