Not
Yet My Mother Yesterday I found
a photo
of you at seventeen,
holding a horse and smiling,
not yet
my mother.
The tight riding hat hid your hair,
and your legs were
still the long shins of a boy’s.
You held the horse by the halter,
your
hand a fist under its huge jaw.
The blown trees were still in the background
and the sky was grained by the old film stock,
but what caught me was your
face,
which was mine.
And I thought, just for a second, that you were
me.
But then I saw the woman’s jacket,
nipped at the waist, the ballooned
jodhpurs,
and of course the date, scratched in the corner.
All of
which told me again,
that this was you at seventeen, holding a horse
and
smiling, not yet my mother,
although I was clearly already your child.
from The
Blue Book
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