Mano Prieta

The green drapery is like a sheet of waterbehind us—a falls in the backdropof the photograph, a rushing current

that would scatter us, carry us eachaway. This is 1969 and I am three—still light enough to be nearly the color

of my father. His armchair is a throneand I am leaning into him, proppedagainst his knees—his hand draped

across my shoulder. On the chair's arm,my mother looms above me,perched at the edge as though

she would fall off. The camera recordsher single gesture. Perhaps to still me,she taps my arm with a forefinger,

makes visible a hypothesis of blood,its empire of words: the imprinton my body of her lovely dark hand.