The dusty albums
Hidden in the cabinet
Hold images of people
Whose secrets were taken to the grave.
Aunts and Uncles met
At age 6 and never again
Peer out of photographs
Turned murky with time.
Friends of the family
I don't remember
Now stare at me
With frozen smiles.
A whole book if snapshots
Revealing my father's life
Before he married my mother.
Another, full of pages, of a woman
Whose smiles vanished when I was a child.
All now are ghosts of my past.
All are gone from this earth.
I can never ask them a question
Or invite them over for tea.
Relationships evaporated
Like wisps of smoke from a lingering cigarette.
I carefully remove a photo from its black corners.
Place it on my special shelf.
Two people, Mom and Dad,
Standing on a departing Staten Island Ferry,
The Twin Towers behind them.
Now all they can be is
Forever in our hearts.