Photo: Mother, 2 Sons

The photographer
arranged us just so,
seated on the coffee
table with a soft white
screen as backdrop.
We’re smiling, or course,
that’s what you do
in pictures, you smile.
And we each wear white.
You’re in the middle,
all of 34 years old
with the towhead son
on your right and the
redhead son on your left.
I look at the photo now
and think she’s beautiful,
with those cheekbones
and narrow face and
those smiling eyes still
full of dreams and life
and laughter. And now
when we talk a half
century later you
still end the conversation
every time with
I love you.

My mother still has this photo, placed in a big leather-bound family photo album, or else I’d include it here. Five years later, the third son came along.

This poem is submitted for One Shot Sunday, hosted by One Stop Poetry. Instead of a photo prompt, this edition of One Shot Sunday has Mother’s Day as the prompt. To see more poems, please visit the site.