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Photograph of my Father
by Linda FullerLens, light and film have captured you.
You are preserved in one moment of timeplace
like an insect in amber
to be reflected on as your finger reflects
in the dutifully polished wood of the sturdy table.
You sort and label other fragments, facets,
puzzle pieces of the past.
Some of the pieces’ edges are badly cut;
they are hard to fit together, no matter how I turn
and juxtapose them.
Some of the pieces are lost.
It is 1959. You tell me you are dying
and take four years to fulfill that promise.
The mobile you made by cutting
balsa wood with a jigsaw
turns in the updrafts from the floor furnace.
A bird you wove from some fibrous plant flies
below the ceiling light where you work
so patiently, somberly.
Do you look up to see the camellias and candles
with your artist’s eye?
Your red painter’s cap rests on your elfin ears,
covering your wispy white hair. I loved
to comb your hair and tie ribbons in it.
You were old when I was born,
you were young when you died.
Your pockets are full of change and keys, you do
the jingledance sometimes.
Is that Star at your feet? You gave him oxygen
from your tank when he lay drenched with sweat and dying
on the backporch in 1962. His tail wagged at the end.
I could still see him breathing
after he was dead.
My eye is a camera, blinkclick.
My memories are filmed over, some negative,
many overexposed by repeated revelation
to the light of excessive viewing.
I stare at your face. If you turned and looked at me
would I know you?
Just turn your head and look at me.
06/20/2010 Author's Note: Happy Fathers Day
Posted on 06/20/2010
Copyright © 2025 Linda Fuller
| Member Comments on this Poem |
| Posted by Alison McKenzie on 06/20/10 at 07:26 PM Sometimes the freeze frames say more than the whole film could ever. This gave me shivers. |
| Posted by George Hoerner on 06/21/10 at 02:11 AM It is the mental images you write here that paint the picture not only of your father but also of you and how you see life. Both are very impressive. Great write. |
| Posted by Morgan D Hafele on 06/27/10 at 01:59 PM wow! i don't really know what else to say. |
| Posted by Kristina Woodhill on 06/28/10 at 01:06 AM Very poignant - I liked the specifics about Star, the jingling pockets, the personal items made by your father, the use of the camera and photo to develop this "picture". |
| Posted by Joan Serratelli on 06/29/10 at 09:45 PM When I read this piece a few days ago, I was crying too much much to commen- thaat should say it all. I'm sorry for not commenting then. An absolutely stunning write. |
| Posted by Charlie Morgan on 06/30/10 at 07:38 PM ...linda, one of the best father's day gifts a father could ever receive, here, 1959 or up to Heaven. stunning as joan says, stunningly beautiful. |
| Posted by Ken Harnisch on 07/02/10 at 02:07 AM Stunning poetry and a vivid memorial...one of the most startling and affecting poems I've read here, caught in an intricate and mind-dazzling intimacy |
| Posted by Chris Sorrenti on 07/02/10 at 03:07 PM Glad I got to read this. Well worded update to the poem as snapshot(s) theme. I started working on a similar piece about my mother, who passed from Cancer last October, but it remains in my unfinished drafts folder. |
| Posted by Roger J Kenyon on 02/01/11 at 03:39 AM One fine,evocative poem Linda, thank you. |
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