Peek

Ellen DuRell Tess, about 1933

I love this photograph of my aunt as a child. Is the sun in her eyes? Is she crying? Playing hide and seek? There's no way to say for sure, and that's a part of the picture's charm. Grandma took boxes of pictures; her shadow is at the bottom of many of them. The original photograph is very small, about two by three inches. By scanning it, and repairing a few tears and tape marks, I can see why it was saved for seventy-five years.

Song
by Cynthia Zarin

My heart, my dove, my snail, my sail, my
milktooth, shadow, sparrow, fingernail,
flower-cat and blossom-hedge, mandrake

root now put to bed, moonshell, sea-swell,
manatee, emerald shining back at me,
nutmeg, quince, tea leaf and bone, zither,

cymbal, xylophone; paper, scissors, then
there’s stone—Who doesn’t come through the door
to get home?