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A Picture of Maud
by Lynn White

I had a sister once.
Her name was Maud.
She never grew old,
never even grew up.

My father cried…

I never knew her,
never even knew of her.
But I know now.
I have a photograph
so I can see her,
picture her as she was.
And I won’t forget that
I had a sister once.
Her name was Maud.

AUTHOR’S PHOTO CAPTION: Maud with her brother and our father, about 1923, in Sheffield, England

NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR: A few years ago my half-brother’s eldest son got back in touch with me via an online family history site. I phoned him and two weeks later he was at my front door. It was the first time we’d met in almost 60 years! He brought with him a load of photos of my father and his first family, which was wonderful — I didn’t even have a photo of my father. The photo here was very special. Until that moment I had never heard of Maud, didn’t know she had existed, had no idea that my father had a daughter as well as a son from his first marriage. It remains a prized possession. I wrote the poem as a tribute to Maud at the time.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Lynn White lives in north Wales. Her work is influenced by issues of social justice and events, places, and people she has known or imagined. She is especially interested in exploring the boundaries of dream, fantasy, and reality. Her poem “A Rose For Gaza” was shortlisted for the Theatre Cloud “War Poetry for Today” competition 2014. This and many other poems have been published in recent anthologies, including Stacey Savage’s We Are Poetry: An Anthology of Love Poems, Community Arts Ink’s Reclaiming Our Voices, Vagabond Press’s The Border Crossed Us, Civilised Beasts and Vagabonds: Anthology of the Mad Ones from Weasel Press, Alice in Wonderland Anthology from Silver Birch Press, and man other rather excellent online and print journals. Visit her on facebook and at lynnwhitepoetry.blogspot.com.