POEMS/ Going Through
Phyllis and Fred, circa 1942
Going Through: Reflections on a Postcard
With a Photograph of Paulette and André
The two children have lived through a war.
They sit posed facing each other
on a stone bench in a small French town.
It is 1949.
The children’s war was across the ocean.
We were not hurt by their war.
Our wars happened at home.
In the picture the children are smiling
shyly at each other.
Our parents used to
pose my brother and me;
we sat where we were told.
In our pictures, we had to smile
for our father and for our mother.
The two children’s elbows touch.
Their knees bend towards each other
hands awkward on their laps.
We did not touch in our father’s photos.
He never sat us close together. We did not
know what to do with our hands.
The girl in the photo has a big white bow
in her hair; the boy’s is neatly combed and short.
Our mother had beautiful dark curly hair
and sad, frightened eyes. I have her hair,
but it is not dark. Our mother was a dancer
who had to give up the dance.
The children’s father may have fought
in the war.
Our father did not fight in the war.
He fought with himself.
He conquered our mother, battled us.
He never swallowed his anger.
He could not keep it down.
Beyond the children a wide dark door yawns open,
and a shadowed man watches.
The children do not see that he is watching.
Our father’s anger watched us.
We felt his eyes on us,
his eyes on our mother.
One day the children in the photo
will have to go through the door,
wherever it leads.
Every house has a dark door
behind a wall. What you can see
in a picture is not what is there
behind the wall. We cling to our moments
of happiness when we can. Then we go through.
With a Photograph of Paulette and André
The two children have lived through a war.
They sit posed facing each other
on a stone bench in a small French town.
It is 1949.
The children’s war was across the ocean.
We were not hurt by their war.
Our wars happened at home.
In the picture the children are smiling
shyly at each other.
Our parents used to
pose my brother and me;
we sat where we were told.
In our pictures, we had to smile
for our father and for our mother.
The two children’s elbows touch.
Their knees bend towards each other
hands awkward on their laps.
We did not touch in our father’s photos.
He never sat us close together. We did not
know what to do with our hands.
The girl in the photo has a big white bow
in her hair; the boy’s is neatly combed and short.
Our mother had beautiful dark curly hair
and sad, frightened eyes. I have her hair,
but it is not dark. Our mother was a dancer
who had to give up the dance.
The children’s father may have fought
in the war.
Our father did not fight in the war.
He fought with himself.
He conquered our mother, battled us.
He never swallowed his anger.
He could not keep it down.
Beyond the children a wide dark door yawns open,
and a shadowed man watches.
The children do not see that he is watching.
Our father’s anger watched us.
We felt his eyes on us,
his eyes on our mother.
One day the children in the photo
will have to go through the door,
wherever it leads.
Every house has a dark door
behind a wall. What you can see
in a picture is not what is there
behind the wall. We cling to our moments
of happiness when we can. Then we go through.