Family Portrait

Autumn leaves playing tricks on my eyes.

Yellow. Red. Green. Brown.

Symoblic of the season and those that have passed.

They'll come back if we stay patient.

Whether we want them to or not.

 

Faded memories we try our hardest to remember.

The summer. The Lake. Sitting on my father's knee

as he sat on wooden rocking chair. Back and forth.

Whisky kisses on the cheek.

 

I help him remember what he can't.

Smirking a little each time he takes a swig

from his glass. I swear that thing never got empty.

 

He seemed to love my mother more and more as the night went on.

They never fought unless she took his bottle

 

I never wanted those summers to end.

Dad was happy. Momma was too.

They didn't fight. This was our family portrait.

2 months out of the year.

 

Reviews

[Alysa Salzberg]

This poem has a good rhythm and some lovely, subtle assonance. The critiques I would give you are: I'm not totally in love with line 2 "Yellow....". Is it necessary? Why? In line 3, the word "pasted" works so well sound-wise with "patient" in line 4, but I think from the context of the poem you meant to write "passed" - is this the case? In linie 8, I think you need to add an 's to "father" (sitting on my father'S knee). I don't really like the line "but stealing was never okay" - we know that the father was kind to the mother unless she took his bottle away - what is the "stealing" referring to? I know I've given a lot of critiques, but I really did like this poem a lot, and, as I said, you did a great job with sound here.