How I pictured you, poem by Douglas Alexander Holiday

I took pictures of the building
next door too, where you said
you held dwellings when another
son is born and their father must
have shaved or kept clean clothes
while denying paternity because
he was hiding from a wife with
someone else’s wife

I drove through that city and took
more pictures of places haunted
with the spirits and voices of
family members, grandparents and
half sisters, mothers and fathers,
the buildings as decrepit
as the people who once lived
in these places,
the authorities saying that
you were depressed and ashamed
at what you were doing,
but I imagined you standing
in any one of those rooms
with a smirk across those lips
because you had already
done this four then five then six
then seven and even eight
other times in the past,
(I recently learned about
the two others, one even
being a full brother…, how
could you do that mother)
you were a veteran at
destroying lives, both innocent
and grown-up lives,
you just did not care,
seeing nothing negative in your behavior,
but like negatives in a photo album,
you were transparent
and my family album
has only photos of buildings
because the people should
not be seen