Two Portraits

It has the air of tragedy.

Or maybe I'm too sensitive,
just like my brother said. The pair
of photograph portraits, acquisitive
of dust and filth, atop the air
conditioner inside what was
my brother's teenage room. The left
of her, my stepmother, who died
by suicide now sixteen years ago.

The right of him, my dad,
so newly dead, of cancer in what should
have been his 69th year born.

The both of them now shorn
of influence by death and time,
their worldly goods parcelled.
She in her picture looking up
and awkwardly grinning,
he making eye contact
with slight and sardonic smile.

Where these grimy, framed portraits
have ended up I do not know.

The tacky, sickly glow
of them, husband and bride
in death put side by side,
simply caught me, for a time.