El Prado’s great trees and faded colors
stare from this old post card,
its dusky colors between painting and photograph,
stamps and printed postmark
part of the ruse.
In another life I might look at this scene
and see a secret garden.
But this was where they grabbed him
January 3, 1974. He went out at 9
and never came home.
Margaret Randall is a poet, photographer and activist currently living in Albuquerque, N.M. This poem is from her collection, As If The Empty Chair: Poems for the Disappeared (Wings Press).
