Fair skinned Latina with a curtain of hair, black silk
framing her oval face, bubblegum lips, dimples blowing
kisses to her heart-shaped chin.

The haunting image of the girl, now ghost, who her Uncle said
was Beautiful, so beautiful, inside and out. Standing in disbelief
next to a bent-over woman gasping

for breath, rooted to the concrete with no words to express
to the camera or herself the depths of the loss of her only daughter
to the ravenous bell tower on the college campus days
before graduation.

The family had squeezed into a single hotel room in Yonkers to attend
it. The first one to go to college. One of them said, choking on the reality
of what this meant. They would be accepting the diploma in a cardboard
box on her behalf.

Her unwrinkled gown on a felted hanger in her dorm room closet, pressed
and ready to go. It would never know the curves of her shape, the litheness
of her frame, the sweet musky scent of her skin.

Her roommate told the police Yes we were drinking, but we weren’t
drunk. Yes the door was open so we climbed up to get a better look
at our future. Waiting for them in Manhattan.

They had been saving for a cheap apartment with a flex space and tiny kitchen
where they would eat Ramen and watch TV on a used couch after internships,
talk about boys and make plans for the weekend.

I run the steps again and again in front of the bell tower thinking about her,
getting a run in before work begins, imagine her rising with the vapor above
Eddy’s parade as the pink sun breaks over the lace dome of the Botanical
Gardens, Beautiful, so beautiful.

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