What part of you would I recognize
years from now, across a table
Had we seen each other on a wall
years ago, a clutch pitched into a hole
and buried like a kill saved for winter.
Forget it. It has no place here.
Shroud it, cross it out, unname it.
It couldn't be the curve of a face that
I remember. Time changes that.
Not clothes or a mouth or the crease
at your eyes, the botched attempt at
smiling on cue. There is something more
you than you are, something sewn between
your ribs, something deeper than a soul --
some moment I would remember. Two hands
across a table to hold. The way your
laugh claims your body as its own. Not
the exhale of breath but the taking in of it.
Madison Charbonneau is a poet and graduate of the University of Massachusetts Amherst. She currently works full time in mental health and addiction recovery services, reads tarot, and spends a lot of time thinking about what the moon is up to. Most recently, her work has been featured in Lemon Yellow Press.
Instagram: @mcharbon