they set
me on boards
and opened the garage
door and
told
stories almost true
and whiskey touched my
lips one last
moment oh curve
of your
neck as you
bent to fuss with
my suit
jacket oh
cinnamon I
almost
smelled apples
almost tasted
apples
don’t hand
me nothing
‘cause I can’t
hold on
my tool bench
shone pink
in evening
light as friends
faded from sight
I was unmoored
dead choking
inside a throat
full of blank
my body was
a reflection
off the neck
of a shovel
the garage grew
still as the inside
of a shoe box a
man who sort
of looked like me
wandered in 
wandered out
it was me
almost me
 

—John Whalen

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