August 16, 2023 - Ellen Zhang’s “Let the Moment Go”

You will recognize me first. Crossing
your mind, the first thought: postcards
unanswered. You don’t know this,
but the gas station closed, parks revamped
against leaky sunsets, theater demolished with slick 
scent of popcorn lingering. There we will be. 
You told me there was certainty in the way 
October unfurls from roots of maples,
bright red, thick as swollen raspberries.
We traced & traded childhoods
just because we could, tasted budding like
the way memories can bloom to swell into
seasons if you allow them. Then, I began 
questioning not just promises, but prayers.
Not always jam evenly layered upon toast, 
but crumbling, festering as sure as raisins. 
When my eyes meet yours, you look mid-step,
blink. Go.

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Ellen Zhang is a student at Harvard Medical School who has studied under Pulitzer Prize winner Jorie Graham and poet Rosebud Ben-Oni. She has been recognized by the DeBakey Poetry Prize, Dibase Poetry Contest, and as a National Student Poet Semifinalist. Her works appear or are forthcoming in The Shore Poetry, Southward Literary Journal, Hekton International, and elsewhere.