9 (Salad Days)

“My salad days,
When I was green in judgment,
cold in blood…”
Wm. Shakespeare – Antony and Cleopatra

nostalgia is a fickle bitch, only useful
in the company of drinking strangers,
those who’ve known one another
forever

using shared memory to keep the
shards of the past glued one to
the other with only minor

fragmentation

NYC to Michigan to
solitary St. Louis sidewalks,
a band of warriors in full regalia
separated at the dropsite

some gather together at
that small piece of missing unknown,
a known absence at the nucleus,
the only place to be truly lost or found;
solved

a dinner then, without entree
or appetizer
a mish-mash of
strength and resolve,
host in full and bleak regale–
or lullaby to unwitting flowers

sprouts of a different nature sway,
dance softly, and fall to slumber by
the wayside

the black snake, dread, burns
abyssal in the gloom, senses deteriorating,
undergoing unbecoming…
remastering

out across the night, as dim lights
fade,
no notice of a moon is taken by the
harvest

Poem by Shane Douglas Keene

READ THE SERIAL NOVEL BY JOSH MALERMAN