Family Portrait.(Poem)

 
FAMILY PORTRAIT 
for Anna 
 
   All my life I've lived 
   with the photograph 
   my mother took with her 
   when she left the Ukraine 
   and travelled to Germany 
   before the outbreak of World War II-- 
   hanging, today, in an ornate frame 
   appropriate to the Old World. 
 
   Growing up I never asked 
   detailed questions about it. 
   Why should I? What 
   more could she say 
   except it was herself, 
   her mother and older brother. 
 
   Now that my mother is dead 
   I look closely at what 
   I actually inherited-- 
   at what appears to be a montage 
   of three people photographed 
   separately, coloured and overlapped, 
 
   their embroidered shirts 
   and blouses, stitched in rural style. 
   My mother, the only one smiling, 
   looking like a teenager, 
   wears a red ribbon or choker, 
 ...