Join our Mailing List 
16MM Movie, Florida, 1938
LIANNE SPIDEL
My mother walks the beach, the ocean rolling in
behind her, ink-blue under clouds traveling
in the opposite direction.
She’s in her thirties, wearing a swim suit
of navy blue wool, its halter top
without support
and though she hated being what she called
big-busted, she must have felt good
wearing it
because she moves nonchalantly, ignoring the lens
as if she couldn’t care less that my father
is taking her picture.
Her arms swing a little, her legs are slim
and athletic—but too short,
she used to say.
She isn’t flirting for once, or smiling,
content to let the film take her in
just as she is on the best
of ordinary days in the not-yet-center
of her life, no make-up, hair pulled
back, proud of what she knows
he sees in her, a day when she owns the long
beach, the focused eye of the man
behind the camera, the sky.
Memoir (and)