Paper Memoir

There is always that one

Picture that laughs

At you in the corner

And taunts you with

Those piercing eyes

That could only be called your own.

Or so they were

The expression of you

When the picture was taken

In that brief period of time

When you put yourself on hold

For the benefit of owning

A souvenir made only of paper.

Now it owns you

This crumpled piece

Of developed film

Laying in the album

Hanging on the wall,

Laying in the frame

Of your new maghony desk.

Ha-ha it jeers

At you with its recordance

Of past funs and disappointments

That exist only now on

The fiber of paper.

Flimsy, weak, Destroyable paper

That can leave with the flick

Of a transportable flame,

Or be mashed between

The cold blades of scissors.

Ha-ha you wish you were back,

To what history has captured

On the cover of paper.

Its mocking you now,

As you long to return

To those memories past

That you now understand.

But ever-more scared

You hold onto the new camera

From which new pictures will spring.

Yes, more laughing

Frames on your mantel piece

Your wall, your mirror

And you captured everyone,

In those fleeting minutes

That you will learn

To relish, the importance,

Of remembering the memory

Written on the weak, feeble,

Destroyable paper.

Copyright 1998 Wendy Torres

Back to the table of contents

Click here to read the next poem

Home