C Lynn Shaffer

 

Camera Obscura

In 1898, Secondo Pia became the first to photograph the shroud of Turin and, thus,the first to reveal the image as an apparent negative, rather than positive, imprint.

 

On the verge of the twentieth century,

on a night in May, Secondo Pia exposes,

for eighteen minutes, film of a piece of cloth,

and Christ surfaces. As her son

releases the shutter, Pia’s mother,

in Calabria—Aieta village— sits in a doorway.

Children play tug-of-war over a line

marked in dirt, an easy

division of wins and losses.

She looks up from her sewing

and notices the quality of light

sliding over the hills, and remembers,

as a girl, running in fields, a game to stay

ahead of the shadows. When asked,

she will travel to Turin

and replace, every two years,

stitching in a sacred shroud.

That night, in bed, Secondo feels

fear move through him

like a gondola sends an arc of water

rolling outward. He dreams.

Old men surround him, talking,

enchanted with the red flower

opening in his chest

as they cut with scalpels,

peel away his skin, take notes,

drink. From childhood

his mother’s voice whispers to him:

Hold the crystal to the candlelight,

Secondo, until your lashes frame it

and look to see what you see.

C Lynn Shaffer took First Place in our 4th Annual Poetry Contest 2000. She is working on her doctorate in creative writing and literature at the University of Cincinnati. Currently she lives in Northern Kentucky with her husband, Steve, and cat, Moe. Her poetry has been published in Wind, The Muddy River Poetry Review and Mid-American Review..