Double Exposure

When she gets back her prints,she realizes her husband shot the film first—so their daughter pumps a long rope swingover her brother's football team like an autumn goddess,her friends' faces at her fifteenth birthday partysmile through yellow and black numbered uniforms,knee-pad legs are heaps of leaves the girls jump intoweeks later without realizing, boys rush a ball downa green field of girls with their feet in the air as they leap—the giant dog has an oak leaf stuck to his nosein 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 leavesdown 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.