It's Still Life

February 1970: Camano Island

We started off playing bridge but
we couldn’t figure out the rules so
as the afternoon slowly spent its hours
we all agreed to play pinocle, we sat,
crosslegged, two guys on one side
of the coffee table, girls on the other,
and a bowl of peanuts between us, and
I think my boyfriend had taken something
illegal after lunch because his left eyeball
was going all chameleon-like, wandering
and wavering about, watching something
none the rest of us could see, and that
thick grey rain just kept splashing against
the windowpanes, smoke seeping out
of the fireplace, and it was then that
I decided this guy and I had no future.

for dVerse (Meeting at the Bar) In the style of Michael Simms, ‘The end of civilization as we know it’ originally published on Vox Populi, Jan. 18, 2020. Describe in one sentence a moment when everything changed – told as a story – a post-modern ‘people’s voice’. ©️ Misky 2020