Old Poem, New Photo #2

I Heard the Story Much Later ...

after Dad's funeral,
when mostly strangers sat
in the living
room, picking at a jello mold.
It went back to the summer
he was twenty. An old
girlfriend who'd kept in touch
told it in her smoke
stained voice. The story doesn't
matter now,
but that day even Mother laughed.

by Tina M. Harris
poem (c) 1993, photo (c) 2007