ASNAPSHOT OF MY FATHER

ASNAPSHOT OF MY FATHER

The flashbulb isolates them from the gloom of the surrounding beach. My father’s hand rests on the marlin’s fin. Across the years, my father, younger than I knew him, smiles. Alive, with that dead fish, his hidden glance seems to contain the certainty that I, unborn yet for two months, shall, with him dead, find this old photo. Is that why he smiles? Father, I never knew you. My increase mirrored the incident of your decline: Reaching the beach I found that you were gone. We meet though, here. This fading no-man’s-land unites us with its age, your age, my age. Too late, we know each other, and you smile.