Behind Some Photographs
The clearest old Polaroids have stains,
a fog of black and white, or a smear
of hues like watercolors in rain.
Could a stranger know the story
behind the poser's damaged world,
behind such an imperfect smile?
Those long dead pose
in stained dress code of forgotten styles.
Perhaps the wink in the eye is just
the camera flash. In a moment
frozen in the past, no old gray hair
may blow out of place.
A hand with wedding band
placed over the heart
is the deepest life story we see,
and the poser’s silence is all we know.
About the Author: Robert S. King lives in Athens, GA. He is a co-founder of FutureCycle Press. Since the 1970s his poems have appeared in hundreds of magazines, including Atlanta Review, California Quarterly, Chariton Review, Hollins Critic, Kenyon Review, Main Street Rag, Midwest Quarterly, Negative Capability, Southern Poetry Review, and Spoon River Poetry Review. He has published nine poetry collections, most recently Developing a Photograph of God (2014), Messages from Multiverses (2020), and Selected Poems (2023). His personal website is http://www.leftypoet.online.
Image Credit: Santeri Viinamäki “Red Rubber Bands” (2019) Creative Commons image courtesy of Wikimedia. CC BY-SA 4.0
As It Ought To Be 
