by Terri Paul
In the photograph I like best, I’m three,
wearing a felt hat with goofy feathers
that stick out like rabbit ears,
sitting at our dining room table, staring
at drawings in a book I can’t read
yet, pretending I can.
Just outside the thin white border, my sister
sits beside me, spelling real words, angry
at my copycat self.
My father hugs the camera to his face, tells
me to cock my head to one side, smile,
not blink at the flash.
Behind him, my mother loses patience
with me because I’m me, with my father
because he takes too many
pictures of me sitting at the table, though
this is the only one I own now, among
others I found
inside a scrapbook: my father offering me
his hand as I take an uncertain step down
our long, narrow driveway;
my mother holding me in her arms, our bathing
suits and caps matching perfectly as we wade
into a crowded pool;
my sister and me on backyard swings,
gripping the chains as we pump our way
wildly into the future.
Terri Paul is poet who has placed fourth in the Writer’s Digest Annual Contest in Non-Rhyming Poetry and recently won the Mother’s Love Award sponsored by Poetry Is Life. Her novel Glass Hearts has also won several awards. For a complete list of her publications and awards, please visit https://www.terri-paul.com