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Mama wears a sterile smile
in the time-faded photograph-
memories I have. Just like the real things
these pictures are static; I can barely see
her movements, her transitions from tired
to worn. Just my mom, no different now.

Back then, things were as permanent as now;
different though, in that her work-worn smile
caused me joy. Who could see beyond tired
eyes? Not my old memory-photograph.
The world was hidden, so that I could see
the expected love, not the dark, damp things.

Life was tough for her. There were things
inappropriate to tell me then, forgotten now.
I used to wish that for once I could see
my mother do something other than just smile,
for as fluid as a memory can be, a photograph
from her past might be more real, less tired.

I used to wish I could see my mama not tired,
but with all the dark hidden things
there are happy ones just as bad. A photograph
in her closet has brought it all out now.
I used to think I was tired of my mother’s smile.
I know now what in the past I couldn’t see.

Of all the horrid things in the world to see,
Mama's old photos, the ones before the tired,
you'd think those wouldn't hurt, but that smile
was reserved for me. Of all the rotten things,
the mistakes and well-intentioned lies I know of now,
why is it that the worst of them is a photograph?

Just a shaken Kodak, a thirty-year old photograph,
but, Mom, it's more than I could bear to see.
I wish to God that I didn’t have to know now
that my mother, the worn-out woman, was tired
only around me. It’s as if all the things
I was made to believe were as false as her smile.

I found the photograph, Mama, where you aren’t tired.
And what should I see, but you laughing at things
In a way I never saw, not now or ever. I get your smile.