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Photograph of my Father as a Young Craftsman
by Sharon Ruetenik

 

Was I born yet? Delivered
into a world of Lassie and
Latin masses,
power presses pounding
and one for the road boilermakers?

What hummed through my father’s head,
coping saw in hand,
as I struggled
through my mother’s twilight sleep?

And years later on that revelatory night
did I stand
or sit
by that workbench?

My white lace dress, nipped and hemmed,
waiting at the bridal shop.
Never to ornament an I Do or a Daddy/
Daughter dance..

How long had my father kept her
picture, stored with South Pacific shells,
sheet music, and gold cuff links?

From the center drawer, he gently lifted
a graceful blonde in spectator pumps
walking toward her sailor, smiling
at the man she loved, my father
offered her name; her image
his only fragile promise of immortality.
As if he had forgotten my bell bottomed
frame, the blue wash of our eyes,
our long slender fingers.
Forgotten my mother,
only a fast flight of stairs away, softly
singing Sinatra’s Young at Heart.