A version of our life together
sits in a frame
in our daughter’s room,
smiling back at her while she sleeps —
these two people
role playing a perfect scene
in some foreign Spanish film
whose protagonist
turned into the antagonist
in later years.
Tucking her in,
I stare at those two strangers,
the ghost of you
transparent
with the secrets of lifetimes
you participated
with so many others.
The interpretation of me
is of cellophane
covering rubbish.
That young woman has been buried
with the ex-composition of you
that so eloquently seems to smile
back from the glass,
encased in the lack of understanding
for her needs.
You haunt memories,
escaping the emotions
with your Houdini acts
that left only a version
of the apparition
we thought was you.