He says he has found
a treasure trove of home movies
8mm film in small metal cans,
the sprocket holes intact
for the most part, my childhood
I thought captured on 35mm slides
that I am too cheap to pay
to have digitized, my adoptive
parents ill at ease with a camera
assuming always back lighting
was preferable, and I admit
it was nice to be an angel
or at least so my perpetual
halo allows me to claim.

But we have no projector
and given his photographic
skills, his cinematographic ones
suggest a black and white
zombie film of embarrassment,
but I tell him thanks
and imagine several uses
for the circular metal cans.