Photo Shoot
 
 Your pink tulle skirt catches
 in the late summer grass
 and for a moment,
 the prairie holds you captive.
 As if a sleeping seed awakened,
 sliding, shooting upward, breaking
 the earth’s skin and standing tall,
 one honey-haired blossom
 among the wild chicory and blue stem.
  
 Your mother moves towards you 
 pressing her eye to the camera.
 Surely she sees what I do—
 your childhood untethering here,
 each gossamer piece catching the breeze
 and escaping, petal by petal,
 into this sacristy of late July.
  
 I long to frame this legacy of loveliness:
 a mother’s soft eyes,
 a daughter’s well-kept heart, 
 both eager to unfurl themselves into time
 forever backlit by a golden and forgiving sun.
  
 But even as I try to hold the moment,
 I see the light casting long shadows from the tree line,
 burnishing pink to mauve.
 And so I vow to celebrate the evening,
 the hour in which you bloomed so brightly
 that I could not mourn the child 
 you were.