Devon Balwit

In the Darkroom

You clamped the negative and the blank sheet
into the enlarger, mysterious

with dials, right hand working the wands
that let just enough light

fall on the naked page for the features to ghost,
perfect, from the developer

before you slid them into the sour fixative,
pinning them with rubber tongs

until they would remain forever, all of us bathed
in ghoulish red, lit from within.  

Devon Balwit writes her poems on a laptop in Portland, OR, precariously perched on a stack of books in front of her small window onto the world.