Rachel Eliza Grif­fiths has writ­ten poems and com­posed pho­tographs in response to the loss of her moth­er. She has always been fas­ci­nat­ed by the exchange between birth and death that char­ac­ter­izes their rela­tion­ship. ​“Illu­sion” is doing the same work of con­nect­ing the haunt­ing mem­o­ry and spir­it of her moth­er to her own aware­ness, her own mor­tal­i­ty, and her turn to live and fill the space vacat­ed by her moth­er. I typ­i­cal­ly do not quote poets speak­ing of their work in this col­umn, but I found this gem by Grif­fiths from an inter­view that seems a fit intro­duc­tion to this poem: ​“With the death of my moth­er, the woman (myself) can’t go back out of the world until she moth­ers her­self. I must go for­ward to my own begin­ning and to con­sid­er my own death.”