Five Pictures

Standing in the sun in a sleeveless black dress

a willowy young woman wearing long white gloves

(a handsome beau close behind, his eyes on her)

body in profile, confident face turned to the camera

unknown life ahead beyond the picture's border

Emerging, radiant in a lacey white bridal gown

from a darker church interior into sunshine

(her new husband in a white jacket beside her)

happy family and friends filling the church steps

as she descends them into her life's newest role

Leaning on one arm, stretched on the floor

before the gleaming Christmas tree decorations

( a toddler mouth agape in front of her)

beaming at the still small but growing riddle

she will invest decades loving and deciphering

Sitting smiling, accessorized with a red fez

a happy traveler atop a camel in Egypt

(sans father, brother, beaus, husband, son)

experiencing the exotic and the wider world directly

and not described in a man's pictures and letters

Standing alone and adrift in a nursing home room

hair gray, features frozen by advanced Parkinsons

( a colorless and nondescript wall the backdrop)

perhaps about to ask again, very slowly,

how things could ever come to this