Amy and Bill at the Beach, France, 2005
I took this candid,
preserved one second of messy life.
Dad smugly reaches for the six-pack
he snuck in under our pink and blue towels.
Mum’s floppy—I look like Audrey Hepburn, darling—hat
blows away in the wind.
I ran and caught it then as I catch myself now,
looking through old family photographs,
index finger quick against the glossy surfaces,
tracing what I think must have been happiness.
France used to be so wholesome;
those sunny beaches smiled too brightly at us.
What big teeth you have, I say to nostalgia.
This article appears in December 2014.
