Before September
Blue eyeliner, rain-bled.
Mother. You were blonde.
Short dyed hair falling over your tanned face. Blonde blonde. June 1984, it says on the back. You got married in September.
I didn’t know there was a June.
*
The Polaroids were in the attic insulation; the roofer’s boot punched through the drywall and they scattered.
A woman in acid-wash and blue eyeliner. Rain-bled, 1984 blue. Western redcedars so tall the frame had to choose her face or the tops of the trees.
It chose her face.
*
There’s one at the border crossing. You’re flipping off the camera and laughing, unguarded. Your mouth’s open, head thrown back. I can see the gap in your teeth you had fixed before I was born.
There’s a dashboard photo – rain on the windshield; there’s a hand on the steering wheel that isn’t yours.
There’s one of trees – so thick they’re almost black, closing behind themselves.
‘Why did you take a picture of trees?’
You look at it for a long time.
‘I don’t remember.’
But you won’t look away.
*
In the kitchen, you spread them on the counter. You pick up the trees and put them down. You fold the rain in half.
*
‘Did Dad know about this trip?’
‘It was a long, long time ago.’
You’re speaking past me, to the photographs.
*
I take three – the border, the trees, and you squinting into sun. The dashboard photo stays on the counter. When I come back, it’s gone.
*
That night I look at the one where you’re squinting into sun, blonde and twenty-two and not yet my mother.
Did you walk into the trees when the shutter closed?
*
June to September: the unmapped distance.
*
I look at her – you – and I try to memorise the angle of that laugh, the carelessness of that middle finger, and your face held up against the trees.
Blue eyeliner. Before September. Before I knew there was a June.



Photo: Sichen Xiang on Unsplash.
Not a single redundant word here. Incredibly well thought through - real mastery of condensation. That line, "It chose her face," might seem ordinary at first, but I adore it. Simply lovely.