Snapshots

of crabs cooked in a red pot
of newspapers on picnic tables
of bragging rights

of boys making a fort, then
sailing down a stream in a bucket
until it sunk in knee deep water

of wrapping a bottle with raffia
shellacking it until the shine
mirrored the sun

of not knowing that time
eases into a scrapbook ,
a recollection recalled
with a fictive voice

told with fragments added,
a piecemeal story
with verses left out,
endings altered
or dimly recalled

maybe the pots were aluminum
and we ate at bridge tables
maybe the fort fell down
and the water reached their ankles
maybe the raffia twisted
and the shellac turned gummy

the fictive voice releases
a different story,
honed on a whetstone ,
burnished and polished,
recast for today