Portrait of Your Parents

by Marie Gray Wise

You told me nothing about them
a scrounge of old records on Ancestry
paints their histories

A department store before World War II
a young woman with curly blond hair
strides behind a cosmetics counter
It’s Utah, so sunshiny dust brushes the air

A young man with a slanted smile
and a fedora in his hand approaches

Like you, he’s ready with a smart-guy comment
shoots it over the compacts and lipsticks
ashine in their heavy gold cases

Unlike you, he backs it up
spirits her away from the counter
whisks her across country
as part of his dream

Unlike her, I watch from above
as you wade dusty sunshine
down the outside flight of steps
to a journey in my opposite direction

No official record exists of this occasion —
the story ends without a trace