Study in Aura Photography: An Eternal Appointment in My Alternate Timeline

We now ask for our engagement portrait

to be taken, taken

from the ether (time), handed back

to the ether (timelessness).

If the blur of our anticipated time as glowing surplus

doesn’t show in the prints right now,

we hightail it to the studio, demand the Northern Lights.

The solar wind of our smiles combined,

if you please.

If our social media comments verge on 

off-topic, our ecstatic, staticky shared aura-- 

a brilliant red rarity scientists launch rockets to study-- 

now centers the discussion, reminds the eternal audience

of our pending nuptial--

of how now someday

our bodies will be immersed forever

in one immense auroral fiction,

impervious to ridicule.

And how now?

In one immense auroral fiction.

And why now?

Because we like getting our pictures taken while we are part of the sky.

Because we are otherwise engaged.

Amy Poague is an Iowa City-based poet working at a junior high. She holds an M.A. in Creative Writing from Eastern Michigan University. Her work has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and has appeared in The Cabinet of Heed, Juke Joint, The Mantle, SWWIM Every Day, Really System, Transom, where is the river :: a poetry experiment, Rockvale Review, and Ghost City Review. She can be found online at amypoague.wordpress.com and on Twitter @PoagueAmy.