Family Albums

Hawk’s beak and owl’s talon, belly
of lamb: a coat-of-arms passed down
like family recipes for haggis
and meatloaf. And the photo-albums:
strictly posed, quizzical
ancestral eyes; grandfathers
in waistcoat, a murderous dowager in lace.

And tragic little Amy’s thrush-like smile
caught before that Monday
when she invented fire, twitching
her sheaf of twigs too close
to the trash-pile flame, skirts
spiraling up in screams, sweet vessel
of family sainthood sans creed.

And the youngest son, a clubfoot,
who rode off wordless on a old
dun gelding, bound for an unnamed
archipelago, without forebears
to stare him down for the rest
of his life and
all the generations after.

-- Taylor Graham