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His Hair

               His Hair    [The infant Phillip sleeping under a Florida fan] The air blows just above his brow. Hair lifts And falls like thought inside an angel’s brain While drowsing. Curls like these are gentle gifts From heaven. Silks like these can know no...

Family Portrait Sonnets — a Sequence

Family Portrait Sonnet–a Sequence An Ideal Shape and the 1950s He lined us up in no conceivable Arrangement, except a pyramidal One, which is only just perceivable. Our father’s smile is not a riddle; He was a handsome, square-based man, and so The...

Donald Anthony Whidden

      Donald Anthony Whidden She holds me on her lap, embracing with Her arm and hand my young boy ribs and blue Pajamas.  It’s become a monolith— This portrait—packed with family meaning, true Or not.  My brother leans against his dad, A cheek against that dark wool...

Ivan Louis Whidden

           Ivan Louis Whidden Ivan is on the far left In the portrait Ivan has a distant Look, almost a simper—an artefact Of darkroom doctoring, that persistent Saccharine retouching, to hide the fact That we were human beings?  And we were, Despite our mother’s...

Span Span Span Span Span

     Span Span Span Span Span The earliest of colored pictures of Him shows him dressed in blue, but not a blue Of firmness, not a strong one.  Pastel love Perhaps was its prediction.  Pale is true, Though, also.  Manliness is not required To be one hue.  Maleness...