For some, Yearbook meetings
are gossip sessions.
I try and organize the staff
on copy, quotes, Senior pages—
They call me a stress-case
but they don’t know how relaxing
it is to cut and paste
draw boxes of ruler lines
glide a pen down
and around
smiling faces.
Give them a place to stay.
A memory design.
So that, years later,
we can look and see our faces,
stare into the past
as though looking into the night sky,
where stars that have already died
keep showing us their shine.
When our future might be up in the air,
not knowing where we will be next year,
this is the only way to capture time.
I tell them:
so much will change,
even us,
but this book
will stay the same.
Some nod, some roll their eyes,
but all of them draw
frames like plane windows
on blue graph paper,
the color of sky over water.