Storytelling

Oral family history
is of its shifting nature
blotched by secrets,
misrememberings,
overstatements,
embellishments,
and flat-out lies.

Those who still know
will rarely admit that
their cousin was a suicide;
they really didn’t graduate;
their retreat was a rehab;
their lifestyle is a sham;
their mourning is pro forma.

The posed family photos
portray emotional proximity
belying everyday indifference.
But perhaps all the lying
unconscious or deliberate
holds a larger truth:
our narrative reality
demands a good story.