1944 Photograph Revisited


A jaw line blurred
enough to be enticing,
dark lips displayed
against an ivory cheek,
smoke-colored curls
brushed up and blending
softly into sky:
like some celestial creature
too powerful to keep
but caught just long enough to take
a breath and leave it, brief
and burgeoning, a sigh
of light and shadow
softening, like memory,
into gray.


Ali Fischer