new photos

those awkward kids that adopt
steely looks and
treated hair
to me betray the simple past
they spent like moments
of a waking dream, or
memories of something
new, deja vu, so it seems;
i remember one,
sprinkled, pimpled, freckled
cheeks,
now rubbed to
glisten under
neon lights,
her hair was chopped, a mop
now smoothed into
locks of fine thread
weaving around her ears and
neck,
that innocence that
hovered about her
stained red lips, now glossy hard
a visage, adult, sophisticated
but mostly
just a fleeting image of
decay

holds

there is a moment that
holds me together like
a warm brick wall
newly stacked,
gently padded with cement and
laid atop one another
across and across
by a sweaty man's
calloused hands

brunette

my renegade daughter
with hands that
unravel and explode

an adamantine smile
that rides the
easy wind over

collapsed around
decades of her eternal
growth

wrapped carelessly
in existential questions
and flights of fancy,

stirred with chamomile,
drunk in slowly