I once knew a mother
Who took a lot of
“Photos say a thousand words.”
I once knew a mother
Who gave birth to three manikins that
“Glimmer like glass in the glare of the camera!”
I once knew a mother
Who found that the meek modeled best.
“Let the frame capture your will!”

“Save it for the picture!” she would say.
“Sit here!” Indifference. “Smile.” But suffer.
“Every beautifully dismal angle counts.”
She’d go to Hell if it held opportunities
Capturing the glow of the flames, the raw mysticism.
She’d send others there to examine their silhouettes
Against red lighting, her true home was a mess of
Drowned children in their white frames,
Hung up to dry, dripping with dreams.

“Save it for the picture!” she would say.
Never for yourself, because
What are feelings without
A click and flash to take them?
“Embrace the frame, embody elation!
Resistance results in blur.
Make memories with me.
Pantomime for posterity!”

I once knew a mother
Who heard happiness had to be
Impersonated. “By the roses, in the radiance!”
I once knew a mother
That purchased three puppets to provoke
“Inspiration! That’s what this one says.”
Her eyes only looked lifeless because of the
“Lighting!” The terrible irony of passionless
“Passion! Mimic it for posterity.”

“Posterity.” She never dared define it.
She secretly worried she wasn’t doing it
“Right!” Directionless. “A little more.” Discontent.
“Perfect!” She’d speak it, couldn’t spell it.
She drained youth like an adult and saw the world
Like a child, as perfection existed only through her lens.
Click! At last, when perfection was imprisoned,
She needed to add veils of flashy, festive hues,
Like the bright orange ensembles of offenders.

Seasons passed, I now know a retired photographer
Whose manikins, with time, gnawed through
The familial frames and the loving lens.
And now, her scrapbooks are so vibrant,
With colors at least,
As if to make reality seem dull—duller.
However, these pretty pages, perceived to her perfection,
Don’t speak, but murmur relentlessly, scarily,
Musing that she made photos, not memories.

“There was once a fire,
But maybe it was just the flash.
There was once a liveliness,
Perhaps a distortion of the lens.”
Alas, we all know an eager person
Who finds their way into foregrounds.
Maybe an overbearing relative or two
Who bargain their way into backgrounds.

This mother I once knew,
She was sister to sorrow and
Mother to melancholy.
She was doting to dejection,
She cradled falling crests into cribs,
And she was wedded to woe, aunt to anguish.
This mother I once knew,
Brought a wretched, other side to the family,
A set of in-laws conceived in her camera.

Nowadays, her children avoid her scrapbooks.
Their children, posterity, have never been
Told the colorless tales the photos gossip at a glance.
“Save it for the picture!” she would say,
And now, I see why there was always
A lengthy, awkward pause before the click.
Because Misery, a part of the family that
Was never photogenic, but jumped at the
Chance to pose, was slowly finding his way to the front.

“Photos say a thousand words,” she would say,
But she never knew that with those words
They could screech, curse, moan, and cry for help.