Eighth Grade Class Picture The girls still have their ankles crossed. The boys fixed in their dry-cleaned baptized and bar mitzvah suits. Our neighborhood is almost mixed. Jewish and Irish, a few others in the mix. Mostly White. Some Black. A few of us in between. The photographer says to look at him, as if he’s time’s flashing wand. As if he knows who’ll be holding this picture now. Who the officers were fifty years ago, who was voted in and had to give a speech in front of everyone. What we feared more than death. Not knowing who wouldn’t still be here. The girl you lived next door to. The boy who moved away without telling anyone. There would be a war on after school is one way to call the future by another name. To remember what’s his name and her. Who look the same, sitting there dressed as if they are going to a dance, together and apart. As if they imagine love sitting in a folding chair, in the front row or a few rows back, where the girls turn to boys. Where the tallest ones lean against our Brookline, elementary school bricks.
Posted on: Sat, 21 Sep 2013 16:19:26 +0000
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