Close Reading Poems | Examples

Apparition

Apparition
	
	
	For several years
	a photograph of my grandfather,
	my mother’s father,
	hung on my living room wall
	There’s no date on his portrait; 
	family lore says it was taken 
	shortly before he deserted his family.
	
	He was a handsome man,
	easy with women, 
	or so I’ve been told.
	In the photograph 
	he’s dressed formally
	for a country man:
	a dark suit, a white shirt,
	a crooked bow tie.
	
	I knew him as a broken old man, 
	pacing around the back yard fence
	like an animal in a cage, 
	talking quietly to himself. 
	
	One evening long after his death,
	as I sat quietly, 
	contemplating his portrait
	(a casual close reading),
	a ghostly hood emerged,
	covering his face,
	eye-holes roughly cut, 
	his bow tie and suit 
	disappearing beneath a white robe.

	My grandfather
	no longer needed Sunday clothes.