The Propaganda of Memory

Maudelle Driskell

You stand in the picture, all khaki and gleam,
where the sun found you grinning
around the stump of a cigar, holding
a wooden friar ransacked
from a French churchyard.
In the field of smoke-banked light behind you,
in the rubble of gas masks and shell casings,
helmets sparkle, and the leftovers of battle
bend to the inevitable will of forgetfulness.
The breeze lifting your hair has lost
the stale smell stolen from the mouths
of dead men, and this you,
drawn together by light, silver
particles suspended in emulsion,
is freed from the thickness of the scene, frozen
in the twitch of a photographer's finger,
leaving you remembering this moment
the same way glass remembers sand.