The Twentieth Poem

 Mayor Boris Korobov, the first Russian I ever met, and he stayed my friend

The Twentieth Poem August 14, 2022

As I get older, I find myself

entranced with photos of babies,

especially with photos of myself

from that beginning .Both my

grandfathers took photos of me

at my beginning, caught my smiles,

my surprise when a camera

appeared beside my bed. I seem

to remember that crib. where I

slept in my grandparents’ house.

Not long after, I have a memory

of snow, my father and I with a

yardstick, which went down into

the snow, down, down, and I

knew my father loved me. He

had, by then, a new job in Ithaca,

New York. Another photo shows

him holding me, with my mother

on the other side, and I was

pointing my finger at my grandfather

as he snapped the photo, its being

clear that he loved me, too. Lucky

baby, so surrounded by love, so

safe. I think of all the years that

followed and the love that held

me safe for the rest of 

my long life.