Caught up in nostalgia
I reel in yesterday’s
gone-ahead relatives
in their posing clothes
moth-balled & pressed,
swathed
in lilac’s headiness
and tobacco’s pungence . . .
ungroomed faces
etched in wrinkles
like veins on leaf
and lopsided grins
below crinkled eyes,
I see them
in sunshine moments
wrapped
in plain skin,
in touch
with their sweat,
streamlined thinkers
who dissected goals
with lasered zeal,
dispatching their genes
in the subtlest ways,
I know their voices
rising & falling
from the back of silence,
this ear-splitting
Silence…
– Adele Kearns Thomas
