Dude

Skull of a Skeleton with Burning Cigarette (c. 1885) — Vincent van Gogh

“How’d you two meet?”

Funny

You should ask

I extend my arm around the mantle

That cloaks death’s skeletal frame.

I was just thinking back on it, I laugh.

I think about it a lot. I was newly 14…

“Do you mind if I get another Bud?” the scythe-clutching spector inquires.

“I’ve just heard this one so many times.”

No problem. I don’t want to make a fuss and seem rude.

I meet my interlocutor in his irises.

“You were saying…”

Right. It’s not that good of a story. I read him

Something I wrote, we got to be chummy over email

(GrimReaper@GoldmanSachs.com) and he said I could

stick around a while longer.

“Did he say for how long?”

I look around the party and can’t spot my mam.

Hey Jeff, have you seen the guy I came with?

“The one without the eyes?

He Irish goodbyed, dude.”