The Photograph

Arms stiff at her sides, my mother stands next to her younger sister,
Staring into the camera with a blank face
No trace of emotion—not a hint of a smile or a frown, nor the
slightest curve of her mouth in
either
               direction, her face expressionless, like a mannequin
Her sister, my oldest aunt, smiles widely—I’ve never seen her smile
like that before—
               a dark hijab wrapped around her head
My mother wears a loose, white hijab patterned with embroideries
of leaves, opposite of her
sister’s,
               a long tuft of black hair hanging out of the front of it, falling
across her face.
A homemade dress,
several golden bracelets, she and her sister wearing matching sets,
just as they do now.
The only photograph of my mother from her youth—the only one
we know of, at least

My mother, whose thin black hair is greying now,
goes on walks with me during evenings, eight thousand miles away
from where that photo was taken,
               to clear her head
“Don’t smile,” they’d say before photographs.
She never did.