An Imagined Life

by Stephen Keeler

There never was an uncle set a bad
example nor a powdered aunt who laughed
too loud at innuendo no one talked
in whispers when a name came up that I
was not supposed to know. No picture post-
cards written in a lover’s mournful hand
had ever fallen from the pages of
my mother’s hymn-book or had lain concealed
beneath the perfumed lace and silks and thin
and black-strapped things I knew were somehow clothes
the places I explored when left alone.
So I imagined how childhood might be
with picture-books a brother and a friend
invisible to everyone but me.