On Drama's Passing

On Drama's Passing

If I were one who liberally dubbed friends
I might say that I once had a friend called Drama.

I cannot retrieve the day we met -
or even the name of his fathers -
only sparsely, but clearly, do I see his boyish antics
in the lesser world we shared for a short while
and in the greater one for only a while longer than that.

Introductions were earlier on; of that I know.
before the lessons on Skinner and Jung,
we knew each other's names
and found humor crude in brand a favorite upsell
to whatever gossip hung in the halls that day.

Jesus!
That was what he called me.
A moniker none too alien to me at the time,
yet fanned my youthful ego brighter still
(It must have been the hair).

Whether his other chumships held greater value
or were of comparable caliber to ours
I cannot say.
Though it seemed I could never meld into the crowd;
because he saw them, and then he saw me.
What I remember most are those days in class
when we were desk mates. Center row, center column.
I sought to conquer the curriculum that would shape my future.
I don't know why he was there.
Put simply, he was more an obstacle than not:
Punching my thighs and snapping my digits
as a way to express amusement?
Though it's funny to flinch at the sight of a fist
while taking notes on Pavlov's drooling dogs.
Through the days I learned ever more
of his less-than-kosher views.
He was a skinhead tough,
a slovenly lover of his conquest
(who paraded shamelessly about with a downward shot
of the rack of his prized doe),
a rebel flounder with no good side.

It was just another night when the news came.
A reluctant sire had taken flight, propelled
by the union of bumper and bumper.
A lost and angry salmon drove against the flow
and into the jaws of a grizzly end.

I could see the wake from across the street.
It seemed I couldn't be bothered to mourn,
let alone take a sick day from work.
Drama was gone, but the irony
had not been lost on me.