in our dusty kitchen ledge hangs
your suspended collection of family photographs.
there lurks my storage of trapped memory:
I remember you once let me believe
my missing dinner
evoked your harshest reprimand.
you had a bad habit of making my favorite sachima anyway-
for that,
I glutted myself on the constancy
of unconditional love, and fancied myself starving
for the excitement of rebellion. admittedly,
your words then
failed, for they lacked sting.
my mistake now
is in letting its memory turn acidic,

souring the sweetness
of sachima I don’t deserve. like curdled sugar
it spreads-
a dripping bite of guilt
for every photograph I frame,
with a half-starved voice lilting
in the background
too little, too late.
this passage of

time slips, slides,
and as it passes
it reveals the things that childhood brings-
moments every adult must surely regret wasting.
“alas”- it is only possible to learn from history
because
it has
already passed.
now my mouth floods with bitterness
as your fingers lick
the edges of yellowed photographs, curled by age,
one last time.