Potluck

What do you bring to the table?

A bunch of sweet-smelling herbs
in a clenched fist,
a salad of green leaves plucked today
and drenched in tears,

a loaf of bread studded with seeds
as hard as pearls,
a serrated knife with teeth
that cut to the bone,

a cake stuck with candles ablaze
like a forest fire,
a bottle of pink champagne
and a corkscrew,

a page torn from a notebook where a child
has drawn a monster,
a bag filled with all the materials needed
to make a bomb,

a map to buried treasure
drawn in blood,
a song composed of shards
from a broken heart,

a promise to do better
next time,
a list of reasons why
you cannot stay.

 

 

 

Robert Boucheron grew up in Syracuse and Schenectady, NY. He has worked as an architect in New York City and Charlottesville, VA. His short stories and essays appear in Bangalore Review, Fiction International, Litro, London Journal of Fiction, New Haven Review, Poydras Review, Short Fiction, and other magazines.