Life Unedited

We watch the flicker from the black and white clips
no sound, bad lighting, camera jumps
from subject to subject
a quick view of grainy faces
in the eight millimeter click, click, click.

Aunt Bessie wiggles her butt while tending
her faternal twins. She turns around, smiles and winks.
We got word, the girl committed suicide at thirty-four,
there is nothing in the clips from her first birthday
revealing things would turn out that way.

Elva and Ellen, like gray haired teens, dance
to the Anderson Sisters’, Boogie Woggie Boy.
A blood clot took one at fifty-six the other died
at eighty five. Are they together again, shaking
those hips, twisting their hands up high?

Tony and Callie kiss every time the camera
finds them. They can’t keep their hands
off each other. A marriage of nineteen years
tossed aside. He died alone last year
on a Colorado mountainside.

Tick, tick, tick,
the projector sputters,
this reel is done
but life continues on...unedited.