Photographs

Photographs are framed and placed neatly above
where I write - two full bookshelf lines - now
set against the handful received by post today:
my family's organised rows in contrast to this
clutch of images, some from fifty years ago.
A father is seen for the first time, one black and white snap
where arms wrap around a four year old daughter,
then the full colour captures of his wife, the other son, and
that sister much older, still being held; his handbuilt
custom cars too, and even an ultralight to pilot solo
into the freedom of the sky, but it is also no surprise
that after all these years, his first son, as far as I now know,
isn't in a single shot, or as his last wife confirms when
sending these, he never told her that I had been.