Double Exposure

Anne Sheffield

Anne Sheffield

When she gets back her prints,
she realizes her husband shot the film first—
so their daughter pumps a long rope swing
over her brother's football team like an autumn goddess,
her friends' faces at her fifteenth birthday party
smile through yellow and black numbered uniforms,
knee-pad legs are heaps of leaves the girls jump into
weeks later without realizing, boys rush a ball down
a green field of girls with their feet in the air as they leap—
the giant dog has an oak leaf stuck to his nose
in the middle of a lilliputian huddle; and here she is, mother,
part Chinese restaurant, part stretched on the bed.
Her daughter trails long blonde lawns of sunbright leaves
down both sides of face and body like a veil and train,
and the family portrait is all raked up in a pile,
starting to blow away.

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