Febraury 14, 2009

Walking through a 1966 high school
yearbook, I found my father.
His glasses were thick plastic things
now used only for blasting and chemistry.
His hair was the same side part seam
he sewed into my head. The same
I will one day sew into my son's.
he was a bit my bother and somehow
my oldest sister, who I know I should call more often.

But there was something in the black and white smirk,
Something gazing from the front row of the Montgomery
High School FFA that he was hiding.

Perhaps he knew then that I, almost 50 years later
would be thumbing through his slick paged past
looking for him to find me, outside of himself,
on the convex wall of those thick plastic things
now only used for chemistry, blasting.