Album

Why on earth does a postage stamp come to mind When I see those floating bodies, Immaculate faces of infants sleeping too deeply In the wake of the tsunami?

Long ago, a flood overtook the basement, Almost all the old books in ruins, Leather bindings buckling, gilded edges fading, The marbling drifting away.

From the wreckage we pulled the stamp albums My father kept, and another that was mine, ...