Things from Her Attic
Ed Wickliffe
“Welcome (Dolly’s banner would say)
Home, Darling”
But it went wrong over Sicily
down
dwn—
Now her attic stairs she climbs one last time, she
and he, on the left there, are looking
maimed today in her tattered shoebox, yet
these musty photos (just three of him) still
frame a cross-hairs of the time when.
And with his new flight
jacket on one shoulder, a sepia photo cracks
again between her fingers.
Still
it is still
a quiet minute plus sixty-three years
since, and the memories
mostly are here
pulling a cobweb
home
before the kids arrive.
They come up from Mobile, you know,
unlocking doors, taking
photos for the estate sale and
bagging trash.