AND THE ASSIGNMENT IS: to write a poem that takes the form of a family portrait.
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The beveled glass was cloudy and the laminate frame was split;
The backing paper was weathered and brown and breaking off of it!
Trapped within stood a dapper, young man – a married man soon was he;
And this photo of him, in his finest, was a gift for his bride-to-be!
T’was 1927, both a-smile ‘pon the day they wed;
And they happily started their family, just as their parents did.
Then a desperate Call to Arms rang out calling him away;
And she cried herself to sleep each night and worried every day.
Then *They* came to her door in December, with empty words of remorse & regret;
And left her in wallowing tears with children too young to have met –
Their father; because when he died, my father was just shy of two
Growing up with six older brothers (and a sister) was all they could do.
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