Sara Solberg

This need for frames surely arose one October,

just after my sister and I, shuffling

in the Sunday clothes Mom dressed us in

early that morning, stood alongside the other

secretarial children, plucking our plastic combs,

awaiting the photographer’s stool.

Maybe she needed frames following

a spring clean, that sacred time when memories lost

to crammed closets are brought briefly to light, dusted,

and lost once more. Maybe Mom found a wedding album

whose creaked spine revealed a tender-gazed groom,

his bride too vibrant to be hidden until next spring.

Or maybe it was June, Kodaks from our summer trip

tucked inside a crisp envelope, pudgy hands

eager to grab, to unearth the treasures caught

on a beach two weeks prior: me flouncing clumsily

into water, Dad flung down on luminous sand,

Mom in the distance, stroking idly into a wave.

Or perhaps she needed frames for the artwork

I plied her with, haphazard drawings

that would cause any lesser viewer to pause,

brows pulled tight and lips flicked down

at crayon strewn across paper, a gruesome

cacophony of colors. But Mom simply smiled.

But then I wonder if these frames weren’t meant

for pictures at all, but words which inspired

and moved. Maybe she wanted to frame

a quote that kindled some delight deep inside her,

just as Picture Frames, scribbled in the margins

of Mom’s notebook, now kindles something inside me.