What the File Was Named

I was batch-deleting files, the kind of work

you save for when the evening's used itself,

and there I was — mid-laugh, a fork

in my hand, balloons. Someone's shelf

of cookbooks in the background. Yellow light.

A sheet cake. My face wide open, real.

I stared at it. I couldn't find the night

it came from. Nothing. Not a meal

I could attach it to, not whose kitchen,

not the drive, not why the shirt I'm wearing.

The laugh is mine. The body is. The stricken

feeling isn't knowing — it's comparing

what I know myself to be

to someone in a photograph

who clearly thought they'd remember this.

Who laughed like that.