We stumbled across the back pasture.
You stopped and gestured grandly
at the world with your beer bottle.
"The sun, the moon, the stars. It's all for you,"
you said.
"Really?"
"Yes."
I looked to Japheth.
"She doesn't understand," he said,
and we walked on.
I shocked myself on the electric fence.
Back at the house I put on my platform shoes,
and we drove the old Cadillac to the gas station.
I looked at the old man, slow behind the counter,
from a happy black hole,
my dense tunnel vision.
I ate too much and fell asleep on the couch,
awaking on your return from school in the morning.
"I was having a nightmare," I said.
Japheth had been having one, too.
At breakfast I explained
that the dream had been
that you were no longer my friend.
"I can't imagine what she'd do," said Japheth.
I think you misheard, because you responded,
"She'd have to do something quite awful."
No, he meant what would I do without you.

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