The Photo
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Over my bent head a flash off the window
wants to wash me from the picture. My son
begins to lean back into my chest, and
almost smiles. For now, he has given up

his toy swords to be still a second with me.
I think of a movie, the moment the Uzi spit
white light. The young man flails over
and over again to the alley floor, his

white shirt blotching like burnt paint
every time I replay the scene. Last night,
after putting my son to bed, I found myself
staring at the photo of me hovered

behind him, cupping his hands loosely.
Out of the frame: his fort of blocks,
his ninja figurines, his delirious crayon
drawings of men at war with monsters.

And this: a drawing of himself asleep.
In the movie, when the young man’s mother
is told of his death, she looks carefully
through the cop, through the house walls,

through the thin surface of her last good day.
In the photo, I try to envelop my son
with my whole body, with the secret I whisper
in his ear, but something uncurls beyond me,

out past the frame, flaring in the dark sky.
And, as my son leans forward,
he studies that approaching distance
with a brute fascination I cannot bear.