santos scribes

the picture has been cut down. something or someone cropped out. you can’t help but wonder what or who when you look at it. it’s likely the young child and older man holding her are the second things you’d notice even as whomever cut the picture down may have been trying to zoom in; to get you to take a closer look at something. the decades show: heavy orange and baby blue flowered drapes, a brown & beige flowered couch. the girl is small enough to be standing in the arms of the man, her right hand is holding her left while he looks at her- like he’s just asked her the one question he knows only she can answer. there’s something missing in the young girl’s gaze. she appears lost somewhere between understanding and not wanting to remember. she’s serious even as the red kool-aid colors a smile just beyond her pout. he’s wearing a brown suit jacket and patterned tie; they’ve probably just come in from a sunday morning church service somewhere in central connecticut. from the kitchen the smell of coffee percolating in tin and being drank black from styrofoam cups floats toward them. they use to sit in that front room there together. he’d read them stories from the ancient children’s books shelved there. she likes goldilocks and the three bears best; a story about a little girl looking for where she fits in. she never has to ask him to read it to her, it’s like he knows, sees what the others can’t. understands the secret recipe: be curious. nurture. love without condition. and above all else never ever try to fix the unfixable.