OLD PHOTO I FOUND TONIGHT

The foaming clouds of 1953, 

boxed in the Kodak frame – 

postwar quiver, radio’s sweep –

and my young parents smiling 

in Sunday sunlight with two friends

unidentified now and forever – 

I want to yell stop a minute wait

watch out for what’s coming. 

But no they went ahead on,

on trust, or not even that: 

just happy to stand there dressed

to the nines in the teeth of unknowns

hitchhiking in on a decade’s breeze.

This moment tonight, unframed –

no different, except redemption 

is surely a little closer.

I wedge my latest photos into the cloud, 

weightless, or not even that:

evaporation already underway.

All we have’s what they had: each other.

© copyright 2025 Ray Waddle

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