The loss of youth and innocence is one of the great themes of literature. Here the California poet Kim Noriega looks deeply into a photograph from 40 years ago.
- Ted Kooser
"Heaven, 1963"
It's my favorite photo -
captioned, "Daddy and His Sweetheart."
It's in black and white,
It's before Pabst Blue Ribbon,
before his tongue became a knife
that made my mother bleed,
and before he blackened my eye
the time he thought I meant to end my life.
He's standing in our yard on Porter Road
beneath the old chestnut tree.
He's wearing sunglasses,
a light cotton shirt,
and a dreamy expression.
He's twenty-seven.
I'm two.
My hair, still baby curls,
is being tossed by a gentle breeze.
I'm fast asleep in his arms.
Ted Kooser served as U.S. poet laureate, 2004-2006. Reprinted from "Blue Arc West: An Anthology of California Poets" (Huntington Beach, CA, Tebot Bach, 2006) with permission of the author and Tebot Bach. This column does not accept unsolicited manuscripts.