Sabbatis Camp Photo, 2002
Twenty-one brown-haired scouts,
three blondes,
two pale-faced red-heads,
all in beige, bland shirts
and short.
With white ties,
red epaulets
and patches noting
Troop 310.
Too much the same.
Somewhere, in this sea
of faces, I have lost my son.
Small soldiers lines in formal ranks.
Front row boys sit awkwardly,
cross-legged, Indian style.
The middle ones kneel straight-backed,
butts high off their heels.
And behind them all
like fat, field officers,
adults stand smugly at attention —
Scoutmasters, Eagles,
parent volunteers.
Too much the same.
Too much like last year’s
endless rows of voiceless faces.
Just this once,
I wish my son
would have stuck out
his tongue
or maybe
even dared
to hold up bunny ears.
Donna M. Marbach lives near Rochester, New York and is the poetry
editor for ByLine and owns a small press, Palettes and Quills. Her work
has appeared in The Hazmat Review, Poetic Realm, The MacGuffin, The Dire
Elegies: 59 Poets on Endangered Species of North America, among others, and
is forthcoming in Silk Road, The Quercus Review and The
Centrifugal Eye.