Faded in black in white, about nineteen-thirty,

Two boys sit on a window ledge, that house,

Narrow street between mountains, back, front,

A valley that smells of coal dust and soap,

Where the women polish the doorsteps daily

Dark red, down on their knees in gossip.

 

This photograph says so much about them,

Even then. My uncle sits prim and nervous

Worried he may slip from his perch,

Buttoned up in his best suit and collar

Ready for chapel and prayers I suppose.

His round face in glasses, held stiff.

 

While my father leans sideways, younger

By two years, swinging a leg and squinting

With the sun in his eyes and his knees all scuffed.

Dreaming of music and organ pipes

And the catapult hidden in his Sunday pocket,

A strong wish to be off there and up in the hills.

 

These brothers stayed like this all their lives

Never truly following the same paths;

One toeing the line for all he was worth

The other refusing to break his own rules,

Always the wild one up in the hills

Frustrated by all the restrictions of life.