Small Talk

Sitting around the table of our
friends last year, a disparate collection of
coworkers, neighbors, sister, and the
recently widowed
all a little drunk and some
a little high
came the question meant to
smooth a little glue and adhere us
more together:

so what was the time you got your heart most broken?

And suddenly for me
all present
even me
became
not themselves but just the page their
long-storied lives were
opened to, now, at this
evening moment.

First then, the easy incantations of the
sixth grade loves:
Mike DelPrete
blond Tim Buckley and
so funny Danny Leonard who finally
dumped me with a
torn page from his Trapper Keeper and a
pink crayon:
you're a wicked awesome girl, but -

The time I accidentally vacuumed my
hamster my only murder it truly
haunted me for
years

Then, of course, not getting
into Brown
twice
(I just really believed that was my
place and those were my
people though it now turns
out that I
hate
Providence)

Later, all the last looks back leaving
the ER at my fallen-again mother so sad lost and
bewildered
here again? here again?
as they took her sharps and soothed her back to
Medical Six
then home to meet my brother off the
bus who couldn't speak of it and
still doesn't

The time I missed all the signs and saw them all
in hindsight
when my former roommate took a
shotgun to his head

And too much to really say
of course
the time he loved me
and the time he didn't

I gave the edited
potluck-ready answer but, later, thought
This is why they
sell those decks of conversation-starter cards because
these stray questions
sometimes complete a
literature review that you
never meant to do and that do not
always end
by dessert.