Old Times
BY SANDRA EVANS FALCONER.
is what I call the snapshot
Peter sent to me
of the three of us somewhere
by the water in the early 1970’s.
Peter is sitting on the fender
of Dad’s black rolls royce
in his jeans and white sneakers,
his big bushy hair is the color
of English toffee.
Steven is next to him,
just home from Oxford,
dressed in his summer linen suit,
shirt unbuttoned at the collar.
He’s holding the leashes of the two corgis,
sitting in front of him, ears pointed,
staring into the camera.
I’m leaning beside Steven
as though we’d just gone swimming,
& I’d floated up alongside of him.
My cheek is touching his shoulder.
We’re all in our twenties,
smiling easily, taking our time,
as though any minute
we might get up & walk out of this picture
for a late breakfast by the dock,
or a run down the beach
with the dogs or drive down
the hill to Groton Long Point
where the sun’s still out & South Beach
is crowded & a red striped sunfish
is just beyond the riptide -
can you see this
the way I’m seeing it now?
sitting here at my desk,
30 years past this photograph,
doing what I’ve always done
when I need to find out
how I feel or what I need -
I write down whatever I see &
give it a name: Old Times.
It’s my way of holding onto
what’s already gone –
the sailboat no longer in sight,
the young faces of my two brothers,
the dark haired girl who
looks so much like me.
After
BY SANDRA EVANS FALCONER.
The funeral director lifts
the urn with both hands.
Cut lilies in a glass vase.
Women in dark sunglasses
young men in the jackets and ties
they wore on Easter.
Small groups of friends
standing under the trees
On the long wooden tables
bowls of fresh strawberries.
Wind scattering the napkins
George, touching my arm:
There were too many demons, he said,
there were just too many demons
Sandra Evans Falconer is an award-winning writer, poet and author of two poetry chapbooks, Absent Sisters, and Imagining the World, as well as a full-length collection, The Six o'clock Siren. She is also a 1999 recipient of an individual Artist Award in Poetry from The Maryland State Arts Council. Sandra's work has been adapted for the stage and presented in collaboration with Source Theatre for the 2004 Page to Stage Festival for the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. She is also the writer and director for Living Water: Voices from the RMS Titanic, a performance piece adapted from her original poems about the famous Ship of Dreams. Sandra holds her MFA in Writing from Spalding University in Louisville, Kentucky. She lives in Washington, DC where she works as an expressive movement therapist for seniors in nursing care and women in transition. You can find more of her work at www.sandraevansfalconer.com.