Even

by Elizabeth Wawrzyniak

I have collected your fading photographs,
Silver celluloid proof of years passing,
Held them to the light and searched
For any sign of me.
And I have found myself in all of them.

Even the aunt who sat alone at the table,
Reading Dickinson and Plath together,
Mixing them into one for a stronger
Brew of melancholy,
And dreamt of bees instead of children.

Even a great-great-great grandmother,
Who wandered fields of tall yellow corn
In her white linen dress and army boots
And picked at stalks,
Guiding growth with thick leather gloves.

Even the grandfather who ran away to sea,
Escaping an overbearing father, a frigid home,
And finding with children of his own,
Some twenty years later,
His father's face staring back from the mirror.

Even my own mother, full of fear and dreams,
Who looks backward and forward all at once,
Searching for a safer middle ground,
Proverbial middle child,
Seeking to fulfill hopes and wishes not her own.

I am all of you together, generations past;
Pieces falling through cracks,
Slowly pushing upwards
Blood running true
I am all of you together, all at once together.

Knowing this, I scour photographs closer,
Not looking back but forward
And hope myself repeated,
Piece by piece,
In the generations that are waiting.

The Author

Elizabeth graduated from Marquette University with a BA in English Lit and minors in Classics and Criminology/Law Studies and will soon begin an MA program in Medieval Studies at the University of Leeds, after which she plans on entering a PhD program in Medieval Literature, focusing on the English and French poetry written in the romance tradtion between the 12th and 14th century. Her poetry has also been published in the Marquette Journal.