A Question About an Old Friend

The first time I read it

I almost understood.

His black eye and tight mouth

unsettled me, with clarity

staring through a grainy

black-and-white photo

featured above the words,

“[blank] loved life”

Those unspoken words echo

with the voice of the boy

who dances through my mind

in an unfinished basement

eternally day drunk

singing Glory Days

In defense of the dead man

I never bothered to meet

but suspect would still groan

as he sobbed, then gurgled

at this fallacious belief

I ask:

How could love hang

between a slab and a beam?

Joe Couture is a writer living in rural Nova Scotia with his wife, three children, and a mentally taxing number of pets. Joe writes for his health, and to justify his English degree.