• Skip to main content
  • Skip to secondary navigation
  • Skip to primary sidebar

Painted Bride Quarterly

  • About
    • About PBQ
    • People
  • Issues
    • Current Issue
    • Past Issues
    • Print Annuals
  • Podcast
    • Latest Podcast
    • All Podcasts
  • News & Events
  • Submit
  • Shop
  • Fiction
  • Poetry
  • Prose
  • Contributors
  • Current Issue

George McDermott: “Frames Per Second”

May 9, 2018 by PBQ Leave a Comment

Sorting old photos and cans of home movies		
she comes across a yellowing shot
of a laughing girl her younger daughter 
the one who moved to Arizona
or who knows where ’cause truth be told		
they haven’t talked in a very long time

About ten in the picture probably ten			
when they sang together every day
before the eyes the defiant shoulders
the silent years when it seemed they met
only on stairways passed only
in doorways and the cameras
were pretty much packed away

She puts the photo back safe in its folder
opens a can and threads the projector
and the reel of film flickers to life
ratcheting through from moment to moment
enough pictures to create the illusion of motion
enough motion to create the illusion of progress 
playpens and sandboxes bicycles and then

the interstitial flash of white
just six or eight light-struck frames
dividing what came before 
from what will follow

Filed Under: Issue 97

Reader Interactions

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Primary Sidebar

Recent News & Events

PBQ March Slam Session!

PBQ @ the Pen & Pencil!

PBQ Slam Session!

Slam Session with PBQ!

PBQ @ Poetry Tent!

© 2020 Painted Bride Quarterly. Contact PBQ: info@pbqmag.org