photographs of the living

These walls, they fade into
worn-at-the-edges photographs
languishing in sepia tones
that whisper their lives, past
into the air
because there is something here,
in this picture
of a history that was not lived
and yet is known
instinctive to us
in the words that are said
simultaneous.

And we know
if we were to place this picture, face down
inscribed there, we would find
our own words, scrawled
on this, an heirloom
taken a century before birth
by hands and eyes
that did not witness our presence

these walls, they fade into
a scrapbook of time
with its stories of devotions
of souls, separated by oceans and bodies
bound in a softened brown leather cover
pressing skin into flowers, dried for eternity.

These walls, they fade,
and we,
we blossom.