#2

A strange smile towards my hidden lense
As I secrete her still living image away.
It was over in a painless and silent click.
There was something about that smile
That evaded me in that crack of time -
For I hadn't seen it for many years.

What I did unquestionably see
Were her legs, engorged by oedema

Sticking out beneath her housecoat.
And they reminded me of smiles, long ago,
When I was just around five years old:
She would stand on a kitchen chair
And make me paint her bare legs
With some ancient fake tanning
Made available after WWII:
Being taught to dab the cotton-wool
into a saucer of the brown liquid
Then carefully wipe it up and down
Legs that were towering above me.
She would smile at me then,
And that was a clear indication
That I had done the job well...
Perhaps that smile also meant
That she really, really loved me?
Years later a smile could be a mask!
You needed to read between the lines
And be on your guard with her,
Lest you fell foul of manipulation,
Have your intentions misinterpreted.
So like the fabulous Mona Lisa 
Her smile was very often enigmatic.
For she had methods of contriving;
For getting her own sweet way!
Labelled in this day and age
As 'emotional blackmail' or 'bullying':
Like applying  a coercive silence -
'Sending you to Coventry' as they say -
Effectively destabalizing me, her progeny.
But there we are! The photo remains
As a semi-permanent record of a time.
A time before she had moved on, because 
Almost precisely one year later
I would return to empty out her flat;
Clear out all her pale belongings
Making the empty place an echo chamber

Remembered now by five secret photographs.

© Griffonner 2025