Mather Schneider
Fragile
Mom takes the family photos off the wall.
We all look clean and civilized
behind our little windows
but ugly compared to the fashion models in the newspaper insert
lining the bottom of the cardboard box.
Mom crumples up
the headlines, the opinions,
the obituaries, the fluff,
stuffs them
between the sharp-elbowed frames
and masking tapes the whole affair
tight as a headwound.
I’m nine and I imagine
we’ll be nomads now,
hunter-gatherers, like some forgotten
species that walked the earth
even before grandma and grandpa,
even before the great flood.
Mom tries to protect us
with the magic wand
of her black marker
but deep down
she knows it won’t stop
the way things shift
and crack, or the way water seeps in
like amnesia.
Other work by Mather Schneider