Picture

There is a picture
I carry with me
wherever I go.
It will never fade.
You cannot see it.

Anchored in my mind,
it holds me in place.
I knew everything
about what happened
and I understood.

I was just a boy
at home before school.
Mom and Dad were gone
and one sister too.
Two came home alone.

I went out to them,
my mother silent,
my father unshaved.
He spoke to me then,
and I remember.

His voice was heavy,
thick with emotion
young ears did not know.
She was just gone then.
But I miss her now.