M For Memory

[Daughter photo: our back porch]

Grampa's pistola, Alfred's
Watch --gold-- a
Folding brass rule
In a dimming past,
A netting shuttle I
Saw whittled out of
Shingle under shady
Trees sees me, and
There's sissors stabbed
Into Portuguese cork
And a box of pins,
This is how settlement
Begins: someone
Builds a shadow,
A shadowbox, and under
Glass each soul looks
Out, out of the past.
Only in reflection do
They see outlines
Of things to be --
Like us, like
You and me.