The Picture

His thumb presses kisses
to my polyester skin,
tracing the cheeky smile of a boy
whose skinny arm is draped
around his taller one.
Two pairs of identical amber eyes
stare back at him, sweeter
than the laughter that used to erupt
like volcanoes from their lips.
Every day he frees me gently
from my frame, watches as
sunlight from the window
pours onto my glossy face,
causing the boy in the photo
to look like a ghost.
His tired mud-amber eyes
search the smile of the small boy
whose arm was draped around his own,
whose arm is not draped around his now,
but instead is buried somewhere
beneath a 2002-2014 tombstone.
His mouth twitches, longing
to curve upward into the crooked smiles
that lie within my frame.
Two doleful eyes that dream every night
of seeing the boy whose face is
tattooed on my polyester surface
Each day, as he picks me up
from the frame that binds me,
tracing the smile of the boy
who no longer is,
his teardrops cascade
like rivers onto my skin.
In them are the haunted words
of lost memories shattered
forever-ago.