The Postcard

Someone probably paid a little money for it.
I didn’t pay much. Three for a dollar out of a shoebox
in a maritime chopshop. The sign said
“Relatives For Sale.”
Then a stack of old postcards
in see-through envelopes. Photographs of people
all of which I figured were long dead. The ghost-like
faces of children. Women in black dresses
at the beach. A family on the bumper of an automobile.
One man standing proudly with only a
foggy lake behind him.
This one had been tinted blue and given a decorative border.
And in the middle, two people from the stomachs up
kissing. The man almost shorter than the lady,
as she seemed to bend to him.
Her face merely a profile, his more
of the whole thing. Taken by surprise, I think,
a tight and flat pucker to his mouth.
Whereas she had full control of her grace and love.
Or the appearance of it. Softer. Her sweater buttoned
to her sternum. Daring in what
corner of her eye could be seen. On the back, a space
for a message. And a space for an address.
Neither one filled in. Rather, sideways along the top in
blue pen written: Josie and Luther Goreman
Taken in Wilder, Tenn
about 1920

We had a few short
happy years together.

I have since wondered about Josie and Luther Goreman.
Who was it that arranged this photograph? Said, alright
now kiss you two. Said, we’d like it blue please. Or maybe that
was just the blueness of time. Who wrote
the message I’ve read so often? Summed things up
with such courage and simplicity. Was it Josie,
or was it Luther?
Whose fence is it
behind them? And why were their happy years
together so short?

I’ve also come to think, since I purchased this piece
of paper so long ago in that damp, quiet store in winter--
among maps and hooks and buoys, harpoons and
wheels as tall as me, a full scuba suit in one corner
a hundred years old with a skull behind the cross
hatched mask--that it is my most beloved and prized
thing. That I will keep track of it, of
The Goremans,
for the rest of my life.