Reflect
By Emily Paige Ballou
Emerging Writers Poetry
Photo by Nancy Hughes
I love the idea of mirror worlds, only revealed
In mud puddles and vernal pools, but which
Can be crossed between freely as the sky clears,
When the playground blacktop, sidewalk,
And rain-soaked streets reflect
The trees and sky above unblurred.
Biologists who study wildlife corridors
That pass not under fences or highways, over rivers
Or national borders, but through such transient ruptures
In the drum skin between layers of the world,
Coincidences of cloud cover, of shifting weather.
Children running out after a storm
To the sidewalks and parks to see
If their friends can come over to play.
Laughing and peeking shyly over
The temporary shores.
Emily Paige Ballou grew up in the American Midwest, lives and works as an Off-Broadway stage manager of new plays and new musicals in NYC, has had work previously published in Barking Sycamores and the Champagne Room journal, and serves on the editorial board of Ought: The Journal of Autistic Culture.
