The Photograph

It hung there like a branch on a tree.
The color?
It was more of a brown,
Like shoe leather and cream with orbs of splattered sunlight.
The timeworn camera had captured a split second of special.
We would call it a black and white photo today, but to suggest it had a quality of such would be illogical.
The little girl in the picture was very colorful, indeed.
Her eyes were sorrow-filled holes that bored into your soul.
Her hair was ringlet curls that hung draped in perfection, adorning her oval face.
No one could have noticed anything else in the photo—not the trees or the rose bushes or the sailor dress that draped her thin body.
Her eyes were too potent,
They pled for love, solace, or some form of healing.
They drank you in, mesmerizingly, till one could scarcely pull themselves away.
They held you
Captive.
Concealed in black and taupe were irises speckled in a blue of the palest sky.
Eyes of wonder.
The picture hung on the refrigerator,
A constant reminder that the white-haired woman with Parkinson’s disease,
The one who could empty a whole coffee cup within seconds by sloshing it on the floor was the same child in the photo.
A child who would later hold the title of my mother.