Transparencies: A Photograph Between the Albums
by Michaela Ballard

That set had two swings on it, 
an aluminum slide on one end that burned
knobby legs in sundresses,
and a horse with broken springs 
loitering on the other. Whispering
to that nag, "soon we'll ride,"
nose to nose, brushing its rigid mane,
I was the lone barbarian on Geneva Ave.

Here I wasn't wax lipped, smiling through 
fraudulent hairspray curls.  It couldn't have been
my mother then, on the other side of Kodak acetate,
winding the 35mm.  She kept things plastic, and I 
was wild, galloping through my kingdom to the notes
of the creek, to bed with cricket chatter. I pretend

it was Dad who was thoughtful this time, running
after me in what must have been one of the last days.
The chains were all rusted when he broke down
my favorite part about our backyard and threw it
in the pickup with the rest of his stuff.  I make believe 
his forgotten records are my inheritance--savage survival songs.


Victor

Papaw mumbles through fish sticks he forgot
to chew about his new roommate.
He wrinkles his wrinkles and purges
the argument they had. Della
would have known what to do.
He maintains one spotlight of focus, and it shifts
to my face. Remembering
the sticks, I'm gone again.

Some bluegrass-playing Christians beckon 
on the only television--the last normality
he's got. The other man feebly stares
at the giant remote. It looks like a gag-gift
                          Childlike.
The two have simmered into pulpy creatures
waiting for the bed on the other side
to boil away.


Sfumato

I am a kermes scale
eating up white oaks who are
eating up the stressed breaths 
of my grandmother when she
thinks of me.  
Next to her on the pew, 
when my stockings didn’t stretch so far, 
we drew pretty dream houses for me
together, a line at a time.  She
omits the scars of her yard, 
the dirt that fed us then.  
Add a slick JCPenney dress,
an education, a lack of interest.
Brags become whispers, loud
as a sermon, and I’ll smile.  
During prayers I don’t hear,
I will layer old paths with fresh seed,
move the cat from his window seat
to a garden damp with footsteps.