Down near the tracks at the memorial, hats down,
knees in the grass.
My running sneakers wrapped around the telephone wire;
my medal seared to my upper lungs
like a charm hidden up a sleeve, stained blue
like lips pulling away from cups of blueberry lemonade.
Freshly squeezed, off-color,
jarring like cyan blood in a place it should not be,
printer ink from fliers
that kids on bikes tore down while riding past,
wet on their handlebars, fingerprints
of the hydrangeas next to the steps, blue as the irises
in the seat of a wagon parked next to a bench.

My brother and I in the wagon,
crossing the sea together, swaying,
the wheels catching in potholes,
thumping like a tank engine, rocking placidly.
I used to cut my hands on the sidewalk cracks,
clambering over the edge and palming the concrete,
tracing my name.

My brother and I under an umbrella without rain,
the trees around us pluming up in blue glow,
electric, in constant comparison.
Is this the past? Is this what I waited for?
I counted down my days to these:
the throngs on the green,
the walk to the firehouse,
eating hotdogs in the road.
Is this it? Did I dream up something I wanted?
Did we wipe ice cream stains on leaves?
Did we run on the lawn, through mud,
propping chairs on the curb and cheering for the parade,
sprinting around the corner as not to miss it?
Did we miss it? Are we too late?
Is it gone?

CHARLOTTE IANNONE is an undergraduate at Bowdoin College. She wrote her first collection of poetry, Night Wind, during her junior year of high school, crafting a poem for each of the forty-nine streets in her hometown. In the summer of 2023 she completed her second collection of poetry, The Island That Pays Tribute, a tribute to Long Island. She is Poetry Editor of the Bowdoin Review, and her poems have been featured in the publication four times since she became a staff writer in November of 2022.