Arm-in-arm, shouting our song on a beer-drenched floor surrounded by on-lookers. Trading banter in varying-scaled bars from the Upper East Side to Newburgh, NY. Laughing at a lactose-intolerant gaseous discharge in a van.

All these echoes of good times with good friends. So many of whom I allowed life to come between myself and them.

Now, I whisper their names. No one hears.

Blue Jay’s scolding

a walk around the seeds

 from this naked oak