Poetry page; Snap Marjorie

                Snap Marjorie was published in Aireings 7 (an online magazine not now in existence)



Snap Marjorie

Until that year I didn’t realise
how black ink can run
its stain through family lines
cross out sexual signatures
blot out wedded networks
from the Victorian family scrapbook

and the children.

See this oblong space
 once                 then
upon                  a
      a                  print
 time                  of
      it                  her
  was                  deep
      a                  in
child                  snow
fluffy hat on  thick woolly
           muffs

later, an empty place of  discarded print
and a faint scribble beneath -
M. 1908 aged 5 -

now idylls lie
around her bed
dreams of yelling brothers cousins aunts
they’re always rolling snowballs
in the garden’s wasted places
and though vacant now
her stare
rolls and rolls of negative exposures
    snap
clicking through her head.


     Photo is real Marjorie IN the photo