Viola carried around a mouse named Whiskers, like a secret, and Mena kept beach sand in mason jars in her closet, if you want to believe it.

Guy Capecelatro III said he wants to believe. He collects vintage pictures and writes poetic vignettes that succinctly and eloquently make guesses about the most distinctive traits of women from the past. In a sense, he brings them back to life, even if it’s a reincarnation.     

His column, “Some Women,” has been published in The Wire for several years, and he recently compiled about 200 of them for a pocket-size, paperback book with the same title.

Also a local musician, Capecelatro said his initial inspiration was the desire to cut out photos from obituaries and write new, better versions of their lives. 

He said he finds old photos “wildly evocative.” He stares into the eyes of the portrait and waits for them to speak through the fictional stories that come to his mind. “They just come out and there they are,” he said.

Sometimes the women in the photos look like people he has known and he uses that for inspiration, but no one has recognized any of the women in his column yet. He has piles of photo booth pictures that he found at yard sales or online, or that people have given him. 

Capecelatro had a list of old traditional names from a resource at the Portsmouth Public Library, but he said he has gone through them all. He tries to find just the right name for the face, and then he’ll “live with it” for a little while to make sure. 

“I think they’re all correct in the book,” he said.

The fact that all his characters are women was happenstance at first, but he said he finds their images inspiring. He said the fun of fictional writing is trying to get in the mindset of others, and it’s always challenging to write outside your own experience, regardless of gender.

“Hopefully, the stories ring true,” he said.

Capecelatro is a little like his character Dinah, who often confused her own memories with dreams and books. He said it’s possible for him to mistake these women for people he has really known.

“I try to live with the characters, so there is a moment where it becomes a little more real than it probably should,” he said. “I think that’s just part of my process.”  

But, he said, there is a certain sadness that comes with identifying with people who aren’t around anymore. It comes through in the way he often writes in the past tense with a wistful or yearning undertone.

He writes: “When she was a small child Velma would take all her loveliest books, stick them in plastic bags and then bury them in the back yard. To hide their beauty. To save them from this world.” 

Another example: “Trudy was clean air, fresh snow, a foghorn in the dark of night. Her parents told her she’d been conceived in a horse barn, the full moon light seeping through the gaps in wide pine boards, and that she’d some day be something special.”

Despite a deep sense of loss, the admiration with which Capecelatro tells these women’s stories makes their individuality seem so special and strong that it’s hard to mourn for them. They have been loved and, in some capacity, they live on.

“I kind of fall in love a little bit with each of them,” Capecelatro said. “Old photos are just so moving for me.”

Though he doesn’t always call it poetry, his writing captures so much in such a little space and perfectly simple language that it often reads that way.

Capecelatro said he will continue to write about “Some Women” for as long as he is inspired, and the column can still be found each week in The Wire.

The book is published by Burst and Bloom, of which Capecelatro is a co-founder and owner. It’s available at RiverRun Bookstore and Nahcotta in Portsmouth, or online at www.burstandbloomrecords.com.