and maybe not but he’s sure not here, we’re

just Mother and son now and photographs

of Father on her bedstead and my desk

at home of course and every morning he’s

looking at me the same way, he never

grows, which makes me think that I don’t, either,

Mother says that if I never grow then

I’d be dead but I think if I don’t I’d

live forever and look at Father—he

isn’t even alive the usual

way but still he’s pretty eternal in

black and white and 8 x 10 and to boot

he’s smiling, just barely, more silently

than any death. Sometimes he makes me laugh.