Contributor: Ron Yazinski

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Because my adult daughter is ill,
And since my ex is out of town,
I agree to return to the house I abandoned years before.

Since the doorbell is broken, I knock.
As soon as I enter I feel as I did when I walked past the photos of my father
That were displayed near his casket as I went to kiss him good-bye.

But here it is my own dead life on display.
On the dingy walls are the framed pictures
Of vacations taken long ago.

And though I am in none of them, I’m in all of them,
Because I was the one who snapped the photos,
Like the one from the balcony in Taormina,

Of the sun rising over Italy
With the small sailboat in front of it;
Or the one of Mont St. Michele with late morning light reflecting off its windows

As if the church was a jewel with many facets;
Or the twilit reds and oranges of the Garden of the Gods in Colorado,
Where the two sandstone hills resemble kissing camels.

And I find myself suffocating as I did right before I left,
As if I’m in that moonlit photo
Of the St. Louis Cemetery in New Orleans,

One of the poor souls stricken with yellow fever,
And prematurely buried inside his family tomb,
Trying to ring the bell that will save his life.


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Ron Yazinski is a retired English teacher, who with his wife Jeanne, divides his time between Pennsylvania and Winter Garden, Fl. His work has appeared in many journals. His one collection is SOUTH OF SCRANTON.