paler than her skin, was the scar
on her chin, a two inch memory phantom
at a forty-five degree angle

that, I recall most of all,
the lady beside me at the deli, the Saturday
before my daughter was born

I know I looked at her twice
in the flash of time it took to order,
two pastramis on rye

both of which went to ruin
since my wife went into labor
the moment we sat to eat

we made it to the hospital
in twenty minutes, though I don't remember the ride,
my hands on the wheel, the traffic lights

we hit every one, my wife said,  
yellow then red, and those were perhaps a portent,
an omen of what was to come:

thirty hours of breathing, heaving,
fetal distress, a caesarean section, a beautiful
daughter, who lived thirty minutes

I can't usually see her face, except
when I close my eyes to sleep, and then
as a small circle floating above our bed

her visage smooth, baby pink, full of light,
though it lingers but a moment, before I see the scar
on the woman's chin, the meal uneaten