Something Strange About the Eyes
Written by Phillip Murrell
My son tells my father he sees his childhood
in just black and white;
shorts too long, haystack hair and
a misshapen hoop, long gone.
I see my grandfather’s boyhood days
In dog-eared sepia;
breeches, a cloth cap with a size problem
and sullen face
with something strange about the eyes.
His grandfather would be seen
only piecemeal;
tilted gently this way then that,
boots, smock then curls would be revealed
in the negative-positive-negative
of steely daguerreotype.