Sorting the Photos

The year in Baltimore where the weather

was always inside our clothes,

where I first saw you cry,

where we couldn't afford to develop

the few photos we snapped of

my first students who learned little

from me and told me so.

We've sorted the years. Made piles,

made notes on the back to our older

selves, those selves we expect will

forget. To our survivors who will

find us in them someday and wonder

why this tree, why so many cats

sleeping, cats eating, cats and cats.

The year in Florida, all over-exposed,

where angels were peeking around the borders

of the frame. Friends kissing us.

Friends sailing, friends wishing us

farewells we didn't see until now.

The year in Utah, by ourselves.

Our drafty cabin, snow in the living

room, snow quilting our bed, the ghost

of snow in all the summer scenes. Photos

of dazed cats, staring at the snow waiting.

Of you looking at seams in the air,

that look I mistook for a maturer love.

The year back in Florida. All our smiles

posed. The terrible strain, the invisible

anger, the betrayal in the eyes of everyone.

Even the cats no longer eat or sleep, but

are always in trees, crouched, perched

awkwardly on fences, ready to spring into

one imprisonment or another. The parties,

filmed over with the fear that this one

would be the last you ever took of me,

that I ever took of you.

The last five years were the easiest

to date. A better camera, more selective,

but cats, still cats sleeping, again eating,

cats on the new furniture, cats on the new

bed. The vacation pictures now, trips to

one island or another, where we had unprintable

ecstasies that we photographed anyway. These

are the years we learned more about the camera,

how to make it lie for us, how to crop, edit,

how to show the deeper truth. The beer bottles

in Key West, in neat empty rows, the ones of us

together that no one else was there to take.

We sort the photos. Make the years into piles.

Everywhere there are cats doing what we would

be doing in a better world. We throw away only

the ones without people or cats,

the landscapes too wide and gorgeous to keep.