A Discussion

for John Beer

I had in mind this conversation with this guy that began at the left margin, where we traded quips. It got to a point where really we were repeating ourselves and each other, so the conversation moved toward the right margin, but slowly. Achingly. Looking down the page, we had about 20 lines to cover, so that we were taken up with cross references. Active ones at that. Some of these propelled the discussion at both ends, while others seemed to embed themselves on a letter or punctuation character. Things got noisy, with people coming and going and a variety of bands on stage. People calling out others' names, laughter, cigar smoke. Things then began to wind down with one or two small accidents, of course. The day crew cleans those up. This guy, a friend, really, and I ended up at a new, usual place, which is what we almost always do, for reasons that they, I am glad to say, keep to themselves.