by Christie M. Buchovecky

To our past selves

Sunlight tonight lies
lemon on the moon, the south wind
sours the spun-sugar weave of us, and
while churning through
half-written summer love songs,
missed lines etch themselves;
stones bleaching the girl
I thought I was.

My fingertips trace the brow
of a too-small boy
in once-black clothes
(long sleeves all year).
Three staples at his hairline hold
where his scalp split. He won’t say how.
His smile for me is showing wear.

If only I had seen it then—
—when
instead—
I swore our bond would never fray,
would linger, scarlet our tongues
like strawberry lemonade.

Christie M. Buchovecky is a Maryland-based poet and scientist. Her work appears or is forthcoming in Variant Literature, Penumbra Online, and Book of Matches (translations). She is completing a collection that reimagines myth and inheritance through voices of transformation and reckoning. Read more of her work at cmbuchovecky.com.