BLACK AND WHITE LIVES.


I turn the heavy page
of an old album

and all the dead
flow into the faces

of those long ago
living their B&W lives.

They only their
photographs now.

Dressed in
Sunday best.

Posed
Poised.

Even family have forgotten
who is who.

Was that grandfather Bill
second to the right

on his 72nd birthday
way back then.

Pity someone
hadn't wrote their names

on back
they're faces fading.

We bring them back
to live in our voices.

These people who owned
our voices before we did.

We share the same eyes
same hair...different styles.

No don't shut the album
the dead plead

But the album closes
And the dead go

to live in an attic
until some future

finds them
stares into their eyes

and they look back
at them.