Photograph

Two of them side by side, slightly frosty and not grandmothers yet,
because it’s only the wedding-picture and I’m not due
for several days to be conceived:

The small one, Grandma, wears a hat with a stiff nylon veil,
and Gran Gran in beaded velvet with elbow-length dark gloves
(which I remember wearing later for dress-up) and cap sleeves

exposing white arms, smiles, her head tilted back,
the minister’s wife playing mother-of-bride to the hilt.
Her audience, I mean the congregation, stand in line

waiting to be kissed and thanked, while Grandma
faces the other way, hands crossed in front, with Grandpa
in a rented tuxedo. Grandfather’s pictured in his vestments.

The church grand, and packed with people not hers,
Grandma stands contained and private in her new pink dress,
shedding her pride and thus also wearing it.

Certain things you can see in this picture: white gloves, Gran Gran’s
lipsticked mouth, church lights, panelling, candles.
Among the things you can’t: bride, groom, sweat-soaked handkerchiefs,

and me, rolled for years like a snowball over the terrain
of the two grandmothers, dense with the snow from two mountains
that met in one stream that melting August.

Katy Evans-Bush

If you've any comments on this poem, Katy Evans-Bush would be pleased to hear from you.