(NaPoWriMo Challenge: April 2, 2016)

We’ve been framed in one of those initially sticky
new snaps of plastic advent technology. At my birth
a blast of blue and blood orange. All of us in diminutive
stiff portraits, bordered in white. Mother is chic-thin,

hair towering in one last hurrah for the old decade,
Byzantine print blouse to match her solid orange Capris.
Big brother is seven, bully-freckled in light blue and crying
under his father’s arm. This will turn to sublimated rage.

The middle boy is off to the side, at five years dubious.
He is also sporting patterns of gray Byzantine. His shoe is untied
and we will not remember the same things. A dark void
of couch separates him and his feet are hanging

high above a rug which is dutifully shagged and tan
as if we’re all fleas on the hide of Benji. The couch is rough,
upholstered in a Baroque of dark blue and other blues
like an act foretelling a tough forthcoming.

Dad has the forehead of high Renaissance.
He’s wearing some suede kind of loafer and the confidence
of someone who has just learned to set a camera timer.
I don’t know where his glasses are or if there were any yet.

What a smart bunch or soon to be smart bunch.
I am the fat one, a diamond of balancing white
in my mother’s polyester lap, not yet one, most probably
kicking,  noticeably turned to the crying brother

as if I’m full of knowledge about what this means
and how delicate the emotional balance will always be.
I remember the wallpaper felt like dried wheat.
Despite everything, we usually all vote pretty much the same.