If You Look at the Pictures

If you look at the pictures
They were happy

The pictures don't show you the questions
They don't show you the question marks
The inquisitive natures
The isolated incidents

Pictures just show you people
People who smile

Pictures remind you
To smile

If you look at the pictures
You see me in a sailor suit
When I was three
And the two of them standing behind me
Smiling

Being reminded to smile

You see Dad looking off to the left
Which is sort of always where he was
A little off to the left
A little bit not there
All the time

And you look at Mom
Staring at the camera
Defiantly being documented
And determined to fool you
Into thinking
She's not terrified

And there's me
Little three-year-old me
In my sailor suit

Looking like
I don't know a thing

You'd believe it
If you looked at the picture

And I have lots of pictures

But the mind holds more than the pictures

I had a friend who used to do theater
I never liked any of his shows
Too conceptual for me
Big, huge phallic objects all over the place
And nobody who saw them
Thought they were any good
Just visually, you know, stunning

And I figured he didn't know what people thought
But one night, I was there seeing a show
And he came right out and said it

He said--'In ten years, nobody will remember the show'

'But we'll still have those pictures.'

Here's one of me at the beach
The day Dad left
He went a little to the left
And then more
And then more
Until he was finally just
Out of the picture

You can see it through the years
You can see him sneak out
One piece of him at a time

A little of him goes in Disneyland
A little of him goes in Cape Cod
A little of him goes at my birthday party
And finally
He's gone

So here's the beach
Just me
Because Mom has to take the picture
Because somebody has to take the picture

Did you ever look at a picture
And wonder more about who was behind the camera
Then who was in front of it?

We never wonder about the people
Taking the pictures
When they're not famous photographers

We never let our eyes
Go beyond the shot

Sometimes I wish I could

Sometimes I wish I could go around the corner
Around the edge of the photo
Or into the ocean
And see what it was
What it was about that day
That made Dad leave

If you look at the pictures
You don't know
You just don't know

All you see is a little kid
Looking at the camera
Looking right at the camera
Trying not to look
At anything else