Poem: Downer

Tart mountain jasmine, just cooling,
Rolls from greyed porcelain onto my tongue,
Cleaved midair by the force
Of a forgotten friend's greeting.
"I coulda swore that was you
From out there in the street!"
Something small thuds against crumbling bricks
On past afternoons
Like kicking a dusty Pandora's box
Long resigned to the attic of rememory.
He nurses two Buds after a spell,
And I see how hard his needled wife
And three boys and girls work for one of his smiles.
Oh his job is "good enough," he dribbles.
The lukewarm tartness envelops me,
Dragging back a forlorn tapestry
Of his nostalgic, languishing dreams;
A barricaded Korea greets me.
Nodding, I passively acknowledge his bitterness -
Of course his boss is a hardass, of course his wife
Is dull, of course the dreariness of middle
Age gnaws at his paper yachts -
Wondering just what stole his
Imagination, once stockpiled by Furies, as
The faintness of my tea dissolves finally into
A dearth of soul like losing both legs
In the war.