In some real sense our childhoods are replaced
By photos.  Here I sit with pale hair so
Blond that it erases me.  I’m traced
In memory now because of flashbulb blow
And not because synapses in my brain
Remember me, that little, nearly white-
Haired child there dressed in light pajamas, plain

Blue like his little eyes.  The camera’s light
Is all that keeps this child, forever gone
Now, focused in his universe, this scene.
Another photo shows a red hat on

Me, cowboy felt, me trying to look mean.
..In fact the photos warp my view of what
….I was.  I never was a cowboy strut.