Anthony Robinson

On a Photograph, 1973

Searching an old book of photographs:
scratched and fading, weathered, beat,
polaroids, polyester, Mom, Dad, and me. I laugh

months later in the August heat
while drinking beer alone outside,
dancing lazily to the distant beat 

of hearts and bodies pressed inside
the house, like flowers in a dictionary,
butterflies tacked down, a swimmer at high tide,

the sleek Ophelia who will stare 
back at the beach and just give in:
the stasis of lovers who kissed, scared

beneath a streetlight on a thin
November night, eyes rounded as if
they'd never been this close, and could not begin

their long, slow work, turning the stiff
pages of this score, the startled
symphony, my mother's muffled gasp, my life.

Anthony Robinson has worked in a furniture mill, shuffled papers for the United States Navy, taught freshman composition and introduction to poetry classes at the local University, and occasionally writes a poem or two. He lives and works in Eugene, Oregon. See his other work published this issue, Confessions.

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