A Photo of Me

A Photo of Me

My Daughter at twenty

My eightyish Mother

Engrossed in discussion

Across from each other

As I look at the photo

I observe in the air

An invisible spirit

Uniting the pair

My Self hovers there!

Old photos would prove a resemblance uncanny

There is my clone - I doubt that she sees it

Would she cringe at the thought?

Does any girl dream of looking like Mother?

My Mother is aging and frail and petite

I won't be as short or as skinny at eighty

Yet just as I see my own youth in my Daughter

I know the old woman will one day be me!

So I keep that photo on a shelf with my books

And while I'm not in it when anyone looks

I'm there in their smiles

In their youth - in their age

I'm there in the air like the words on a page

Expressed in the bookends that anchor my being

My Mother - My Daughter

My Self at each stage

-JoMae-