Sepia

It has taken many years
to gather the strength,
but now I'd like to look back
across the wreckage of our life together
to find comfort in its idylls.

Yet I find the memories
do not come easily to mind,
like opening a trusted photo album,
and finding many of the pictures
have rotted away.

Worse, kept so long from sight,
they've become pale and
sickly to look upon-
A confusion of sepia-toned
unloveliness.

There is no comfort here,
and if there ever was,
it has been lost,
along with so many
other things.