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Order this writing that appears in the one-of-a-kind anthology The Ice that Was the Down in the Dirt Jan.-April 2022 issues collection book		get the 420 page Jan.-April 2022 Down in the Dirt 6" x 9" ISBN# perfect-bound paperback book:

Salute

David Sapp

From a photograph buried
in an album somewhere
in the hall closet, an image
occasionally comes to mind,
a bright summer morning, 1971.

My mother, in her flowered
housedress and floppy slippers,
stands in the driveway clutching
my baby sister against her hip
in a madonna’s contrapposto pose.

She faces the sun, illuminated
as if she’d ignite and with
her free hand shields her eyes
in a sarcastic soldier’s salute:
“yessir, right-away-sir, very-well-sir.”

And there is that expression
I cannot shake from memory:
simultaneously, a grimace and
a smile for the camera. Her nose
crinkles like she smells something

our dogs have killed and dragged
bloody and grisly from the woods;
or she’s not quite comprehending
or accepting what she’s hearing.
Crows’ feet will be a consequence.

It is my sister, who adopts Mom’s mien,
a jolting reminder as we age; however,
whenever I step outside to gauge the sky
or admire the clouds rushing overhead,
I salute the sun exactly as Mom did.

After the terror that passed between us,
after our lives parted and crumpled,
I can’t help but think of this simple
gesture and wonder what else I mimicked.
There are more photographs to study.

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