My mother sends me a black-and-white
photograph of her and my father, circa
1968, posing with two Indian men.
“Who are those Indian guys?” I ask her
on the phone.
“I don’t know,” she says.
The next obvious question: “Then why
did you send me this photo?” But I don’t
ask it.
One of those strange Indian men is
pointing up toward the sky.
Above them, a bird shaped like a
question mark.
The picture is as confused as the son? What significance does the sky have for these men? Or native Americans? If the question marked bird is the answer, I don't know it.
ReplyDeleteMaybe the black and white symbolises something. Those men whom his parents once (perhaps) knew is now reduced to nothing but their outward identity. The narrator doesn't ask why the photo was sent, maybe they meant something at one point but now forgotten, best not to think too hard about it. Could this poem be about grief? Nostalgia? The bird looms over them in the sky, a question mark shaped bird. Questions unanswered and left hanging? One of the strange indian men point at this curiosity, but he himself is the curiosity.
ReplyDelete