Copyright © 2022 by Anthony Cody. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on October 4, 2022, by the Academy of American Poets.

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“Even as I read this poem, I cannot recall if this photograph ever happened. Yet, I know this specific moment existed. I have spent years digging in public and private archives looking for what has been forgotten; however, sometimes it is the proximity of the interior archive that asks to be laid bare. I can hear my grandma’s voice and smell my grandpa, both long departed. In writing this poem, I realize that both sets of my grandparents, from Mexico and Oklahoma, spent considerable time navigating class and whiteness to survive. I am tired of navigating. This poem is that photograph.”
—Anthony Cody