He covers his house in pictures so he won't forget
The walls from floor to ceiling
The cupboards
The appliances
The closets
The furniture
Even the ceiling
All covered in photographs
He also cannot walk in his home without walking on his memories
So he stands and stares
Pictures of sunsets
On islands
Of friends he used to know
Of things he's done, he saw, he's felt
All casted in pictures
Black and white
Color
8 x 10
5 x 7
Four inch
Three inch
Panoramic
All sizes and shapes
All covering his home
Even the windows are covered with pictures
And the light burning the pictures' backs gives the memories a soft, orange glow
A nice memory of what the sun looks like
For he does not leave his house
The door is sealed with photographs
Covering every crack of the outside world
Images of dead days
Dead cats
Dead skunks
Dead armadillos
Dead squirrels
Dead raccoons
Dead birds
Dead fetuses from abortion clinic dumpsters
Dead people at funerals
Anything signifying death or loss lines his doors
So he will not leave
His TV too is covered in photographs
Pictures of circuses
Zoo animals
Jerry Seinfeld
Jerry Lewis
Bob Hope
Gallagher
Robin Williams
Lucille Ball
Richard Pryor
Bill Cosby
Eddie Murphy
Ben Stiller
Owen Wilson
Charlie Chaplin
Groucho Marx
The Three Stooges
Shirley Temple
Fred Astaire
Ginger Rogers
Grace Kelly
Marilyn Monroe
Jimmy Stewart
John Wayne
Clint Eastwood
Jackie Gleason
Orson Wells
Marlon Brando
Al Pacino
Phillip Seymour Hoffman
Robert Dinero
Darth Vader
Kermit the Frog
Mickey Mouse
Donald, too
Bugs Bunny
Buzz Lightyear and Woody
Pinocchio
Beauty and the Beast
And any other image that would make him smile or laugh or remember feelings of entertainment
His TV was disconnected and had been for years
He had no desire to reconnect it ever again
His books were in the same condition
And plastered over every word of Shakespeare
Or Milton
Or Chaucer
Or Columbus diary
Or American History textbook
Or Louis L'Amour novel
A picture replaced them
Pictures of Indians barefoot and leaning forward in a line without end
Trudging through snow with only white-scabs-disease-filled blankets to shield them from the white storm
Pictures of thousands of buffalo skulls
Like mountain graveyards
Piled up with a white gunslinger showing off the gun he used to kill them all
Sitting Bull
Red Cloud
Crazy Horse
Crispus Attucks
Shooting Star
Dull Knife
Roman Nose
Crow Dog
Wavoka
Pontiac
Black Hawk
The Delaware Prophet
Opechancanough
Cofachiqui
Tascaluza
Vitachuco
And Andrew Jackson
With a live-like tomahawk through him
Pictures of Jewish holocaust
Of Italian holocaust
Of Rwandan holocaust
Of negro holocaust in America
Pictures of lynched negroes hanging from trees
Like strange fruit
Of negroes burned alive
Roasting like stuck pigs
Of negroes chained together and being pushed overboard into an ocean grave
Of Frederick Douglas
Sojourner Truth
W. E. B. Dubois
Langston Hughes
Harriet Tubman
MLK
Malcolm X
Mohammed Ali
Toni Morrison
John Edgar Wideman
Zora Neale Hurston
Rosa Parks
And signs distinguishing white fountains from colored ones
Even though they look the same
Pictures of Japanese internment camps
Of Irish
Arabs
Latinos
Asians
Blacks
Indians
And any other colored group
Being told that whites only are allowed in the United States
Pictures of Monuments and Memorials to the American Revolution
The War of 1812
The Civil War
The Philippines War
World War I
World War II
Korea
Vietnam
Desert Storm
Iraqi Freedom
And the list of the names of the dead and forgotten
All the words in the books were covered in pictures
He sleeps on pictures
He eats off of pictures
He washes with pictures
He defecates with pictures
The image is everywhere
And there is no way he can ever forget again