by Rosalie Frost
a small, square tan cardboard box
containing a coil of film
found at the back of a drawer
after my mother died —-
scuffed, bruised, corners crushed,
stamped in German and Hungarian
“persons unknown, return to sender.”
a small, square tan cardboard box
containing a coil of film
sent by my mother in 1944
to the brothers she left behind,
to whom she continued to write
as penance, as hope.
a small, square tan cardboard box
containing a coil of film
shows my mother, a flower drooping from her lapel,
shoulder length waves of left parted hair,
picture hat tilting the other way
rocking me, lifting me,
thrusting my fat perfect nakedness
toward the camera as
her lips open and close —-
look, how beautiful
My creative writing is not tied to anything in any of the professional lives that I have lived. Writing comes out of my life-long devotion to reading beginning at about 7 years of age. That was when my parents took me for the first time to enroll in the local library, where they had to sign a form promising the librarian that they would be responsible for the privilege accorded me of taking care of books, including borrowing and returning them on time. Sometimes, I would stay in the library to peruse those curious adult books without any pictures, just pages of big words I could sound out but never really comprehend. My imaginative life grew and just seamlessly morphed into writing —-