I forgot the way
you used to document everything
a photographer’s eye shadowing
our comings and goings
beach / dorm / chapel /
milkshakes at cookout
in the middle of the night
I put you back on – the
four of us –
like my favorite soft clothes
a Sunday night
exhaling into the comfort
of all round edges
something so impeccably
known
I have known you forever
it seems
in other lifetimes
when our worlds were more
questions than answers
our twenty year old bodies
our forty year old bodies
I can put my finger on
where our figures have shifted
yet you look
exactly
the same to me
I see you
resplendent
in the glory of our youth
together
we recount the fissures of our families
trace where the cracks have healed
where new ones have rent
provide an oral history
the life that has burst forth from us
and masters degrees
and whole communities
the failures of institutions that
weren’t meant to sustain
and fail us they did
of wildfires licking at our doorstep
the loss of God, here and there
the good health that can no longer be assumed
all the glorious, endless
mothering
we sit by the pool
margaritas and tajin
sifting for what remains
that light that has dimmed
the spark that’s still surging
the gray that’s descended
the girlhood that just won’t quit
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Beautiful ❤️