Here’s a poem I recently reworked and tightened up a bit.

Photos
v.2

I spent five years filling up a photo album with a house, a car, a dog, a set of tools, a nice dining room set, and you.
And you in your wedding dress
And you smiling by the SOLD sign
And you raking the leaves
And you looking at me like I was forever.
I was an amateur photographer, to be sure
Shooting from the hip
Sending up a prayer that when the camera winked
Something would develop:
Be they happy accidents
The smeared blur of a smile
You on a camel, framed by a pyramid
The montage of a child’s face, my eyes, your nose
Or the sepia toned hope of you and me wrinkling in a sunset forty years away
But now I wonder
Did someone else borrow my camera for the last five years?
In the economy of betrayal
One word is worth a thousand pictures
“I do” bought two thousand moments
“Divorce” took half of them back
It’s an expensive word
It cost a house, a car, a dog, a set of tools, a nice dining room set, and you.
And you packing up your wedding dress
And you putting up a FOR SALE sign
And you leaving the rake
And you looking at me like I never meant anything
And it cost you me.
All those photos, just gone
As though I had spent the last five years taking pictures of the sun.