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My buddy and I used to walk down to the river
most every day. Those talks were a big help
in banishing high school, dads, and other distractions.
We’d sit and smoke on a theme until we happened
on wild thoughts we thought we’d always remember:
the one-handed clap, the before-your-parents face.
As it grew darker I could only see his face
when he lit a fresh cig and gave the river
another burnt match. I’d often remember
some episode with a girl, and he’d just help
me distinguish my feelings from what really happened,
like a cool analyst, above the distractions
of personality. He’d say, “Consider this action
only,” returning the cigarette to his face
in a ritual gesture, a red tracer that happened
to correspond to a sloshing sound from the river,
as if the universe wanted to help
us decide which meanings of life to remember.
But along with this strange closeness I remember
the way our inspiration dizzied to distraction.
We started drinking hard, thinking it helped
us see what “normal people” wouldn’t face.
We were lonely, obviously. A river
won’t drown a day-job. Whatever happened,
things spiraled down between us. It happened
in a single summer. I could not remember
the stoic confidence of before. The river
ebbed to a delta of mudbanks. Distraction
mired conversation. We divided fates
and sat there stubborn in the dark, no help
to each other. Even when I tried to help,
there was no current between us, as though we happened
to be sitting together because the face
of swirling water drew us there, members
of some anonymous band. “Talk is distraction,”
he said, resting his cool eyes on the river.
Sometimes I go down there alone. It helps to remember
watching with him—not just the sadness and distraction,
but steady currents; to read again the face of the river.
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