Photo Stop

She came here to take this photo.
She is trying to take this photo—
without the tears and trembling— 
of this old Cherokee Princess Dogwood
with her iPhone- 
the one her father planted
and her mother fertilized, pruned, nurtured,
coaxed through drought and frost
for more than fifty years.

It will be a photo that she only sees,   
and knows about- 
her talisman to ward off grief.

This is not the old steady tree she remembers.
Its bark is flaking, 
peeling into strips stinking of mildew
Confused by the warm February.
the blossoms have arrived early,
They emerge pink-white and stuttering
against a sky too bright to be spring.
This February feels bone wrong. 

She is alone— in the middle of this yard—
in this unfamiliar silence.
Alone with just this tree and 
this now dark house she grew up in,
in the background.
 
Her thumb hovers 
over the white shutter dot.
She takes a breath 
trying to settle
her fretful hand—
trying to keep 
both anxiety 
(her perpetual mind drama) 
and the tremors of aging—
from taking their part
in this shoot.    
 
She doesn’t touch the tree.
Doesn’t kneel to smell the soil
or press her palm to the trunk
where her mother once tied ribbons
to mark new growth.

She only lifts the phone,
not framing it for beauty.
It is not the tree she wants
but the moment of wanting it.

She taps the white dot, 
hears the sound of the faux click
and then—the sound design 
that makes her believe 
that the camera has advanced 
the film to the next picture,
but in reality has done nothing,
just simulated silence in motion. 

She stares at the tiny image.
The branches are blurred,
The blossoms, overexposed.
She deletes it,
retakes it. 
The same result.  
The light is unforgiving—
it flattens everything.

She decides that— it will have to do,
and puts the iPhone 
back into its 
protected and designated spot
in her purse—
the one she chose 
for protection
not style.

Later, she’ll scroll past it
while waiting for a prescription,
or sitting in traffic,
and wonder if the photo
was meant to remember
or to forget
the feel of bark
before it softened
into rot.