Mementos
W.D. Snodgrass

Sorting out letters and piles of my old
Cancelled checks, old clippings, and yellow note cards
That meant something once, I happened to find
Your picture. That picture. I stopped there cold,
Like a man raking piles of dead leaves in his yard
Who has turned up a severed hand.

Yet, that first second, I was glad: you stand
Just as you stood -- shy, delicate, slender,
In the long fown of green lace netting and daisies
That you wore to our first dance. The sight of you stunned
Us all. Our needs seemed simpler, then;
And our ideals came easy.

Then through the war and those two long years
Overseas, the Japanese dead in their shacks
Among dishes, dolls, and lost shoes -- I carried
This glimpse of you, there, to choke down my fear,
Prove it had been, that it might come back.
That was before we got married.

-- Before we drained out one another's force
With lies, self-denial, unspoken soft regret
And the sick eyes that blame; before the divorce
And the treachery. Say it: before we met.
Still, I put back your picture. Someday, in due course,
I will find that it's still there.