Aureole
Nina Colette Peláez
“The photograph of the missing being . . . will touch me like the delayed rays of a star”
—Roland Barthes, Camera Lucida
There is no body, no way for me
to know her face, gazing
vacant from the casket
where some stranger placed her
carefully. Their arms heavy
with her, touching her, they held
her like a child, held her in a way
I never will. I am trying to recall
a memory that isn’t mine. Now,
she is ash and I’m the aftermath:
a sorrow she swaddled in the clutch
of her skinny arms for just a moment,
then passed along. In the only photograph
I have of her, she is eighteen, pregnant
with me. Halo of blonde hair teased
around her head, gray cat lifted
in her clumsy grasp. She doesn’t know
that she will die. She is still smiling,
eyes wide, mouth faded at the crease,
this border I have failed to breach.