What Cannot Be Held

I might have called her Chayala for life,

but knew her only as shadow and light,

an echo on a sonogram screen,

a preview of a chord I'd never hear.

Her image was gathered from swipes of a probe.

Sifting through layers of tissue and bone,

the trained eye could pick out from fluid's play

the outline of heart and head, digits that waved

like sea anemones. Different views -

cross-sectional maps- guided the search for clues

to the flaw, knitted in code and handed down

the line. Figure rose from changing ground,

hovered ghost-like and then, reversing roles,

broke up into static that would not hold.