Crab Orchard Review Vol. 12, No. 2, our

22 ◆ Crab Orchard Review
Erinn Batykefer
New Mother, First Picture Show
The unmarked skin of your baby’s face
is a screen and your face
is a projector shining on the smooth blank:
a reflection of your own face,
or a slide show of your beloved’s,
the still frames clicking and clicking
into a movie-like time-lapse.
Only this is in reverse,
like an old black-and-white, filmed
slow and played back breakneck,
frantic piano rumbling as a train careens
into a dark Parisian theatre.
The audience shrieks and scatters.
Though the train is old and familiar,
its motion through time terrifies them:
it speeds toward them unchecked,
like the reel of your father, long dead,
flickering across your baby’s face,
his hard bones and knife-edge eyes
digging in. The terrible face