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Sonnets From Other Lives: Grace

In the photograph they look so young--
her parents with their gay bedazzled smiles.
She found the faded snapshot in among
the detritus of what once had been their lives.
Her mother, vamping like an ingénue,
stands beside her father in his tux--
his Martini glass raised in a salute
to the golden gift of their good luck.
That Great American mid century
was in full swing & they were swinging too.
This was before the infidelities
caught up with them—before the pills & booze
of Grace’s aching childhood memories.
She’d never known that once they’d been happy.