Family Portrait

In the photograph there are four of us— leaning
   our bodies in, ecstatic at dinner, as we sit
relaxed with summer smiles, scarcely
   two hours after a late afternoon swim—
my daughter-in-law so much the picture of delight in
   her summer décolleté as she entwines her arms with

our son’s, their mouths about to kiss. We listen for
   my husband, ready to speak— his mouth broad with grin—
in mimic of his upturned bow-tie, and full with pride
   at the sight of all of us, as we celebrate our fortieth— await
our Zucchini au Gratin, the tasty Pâté , Onion Soup Gryuyère,
   to be followed up by Spécialités de la Maison, among them
those tasty ducks with tangy sauce— the Canards à l'Orange.

We’ll be patient, we say, indulge the exquisite delicacies
   of dinner, laugh a little and chat, before finally we arrive at
the Tiramisu, and then richest of rich, the Mousse au Chocolat.
   We’ll wait, hold our breaths long enough, deep
enough for the waitress to snap the shot and even minutes
   more, hold it for the rest of our lives together, that eternity

we know will be longer, better than the soothing glow of sunset.
   Our picture stretches outside the crystal frame—
out to that warm evening with jokes and banter, both—
    stretches beyond our hugs, the car ride home.
Relaxed, smooth, the snapshot glides along, as we walk into
   the moonlit night, so fulgent from the stars, the moon,
that light spills— casts our shadows long, down the road

as if we’re in a movie set— as if we walk at noon. Though
   that shadowed mid-day eve seems somehow sepia-dimmed—
lacks a depth, (the touch of daylight hues) as our bodies
   merge, then quickly blur to dark— first one, then sometimes
three, though rarely two. And this, perhaps, the single clue,
    that only warning in this family photo— now so hazed faint

by fade, by touch of time— a warning of one parched and
   thirsty desert yet to come, a wasteland of canyons, cliffs,
yet to climb, the chasms, crevasses in which we’ll fall. Too late,
   in scrimmed and shadowed tones, we’ll come to see
the camera couldn’t catch the confusion of this shot: our loving
   daughter-in-law, her discomfort with us three, and then
her slip into shade, that sepia switch, the dark pivot to leave.