Mom, Dad, and Dustin on the Beach of the Great Salt Lake 1997 by Darcy Leech

My mom’s smile is genuine,

A lilac beaming

In the presence of her Sun.

 

Indentions in the sand prove

Time’s linear progression,

 

Her hair yet unblighted,

Carrying midnight’s consistency.

 

Clear tracks fading as the

Movement slips further

In the past.

 

Cheekbones

High, soft,

In summer’s hue,

Hopeful.

 

Each step’s unknown impact,

A future looking back.

 

My father’s strength:

One whose

Life is in his arms.

 

Squinting past the camera,

He rests upon a rock

Like caramel corn half eaten,

 

Just to the left

Of man-made concrete convention

 

Daylight’s eraser

Removing color to his right.

 

Dustin sits

In my father’s lap,

Open mouth of a drooling

Big mouth bass;

 

Muscle tone

Of a well exercised

Jelly fish,

 

He looks at me

Half aware;

 

His wheelchair

Perched at the edge

Of parking lot gravel grafted

Like a scar on nature’s beach,

 

Opening to the ironic splendor

Of a bitter tasting lake.

 

I took the picture.

 

Age 11.

 

Capturing the pinnacle arc

Of a son

To my lilac

Who

Outlived him and weeps,

 

Still.

 

Their sky has staple holes –

 

Maybe that’s how the

Light

Leaked out.

 

~ Darcy Leech

Darcy Leech writes: I am the surviving daughter of a mother with a hidden disease who gave birth to a severely handicapped son.  Dustin never spoke, and my mother lost her ability to speak when myotonic dystrophy took away her ability to breath.  I lived in their story; I am their voice.