We were all a bit drunk after the card game except for Joe who was 

            our DD and he never drank much anyway

 

            And tonight he hadn’t touched a drop, which was a little 

            unusual

 

            I won the pot

 

            Which could barely cover gas fare for the ride home

            but was just enough for another round and

            somehow the talk got around to these dumb kids

            and their zombies and vampires and

            we all wanted to keep on throwing trump

            so it was Mike who asked us to ante up one more time

 

            “What I want to know,” he said with just a creep of a lisp

 

            “Is what was the single scariest fucking moment of your life,

            Get me?”

 

            Between near-miss head-on car crashes and

            muggings at gunpoint and the

            flowerpot that fell from four stories at my feet

 

            It was a toss up

 

            But Joe hadn’t said anything yet and his lips were puckered 

            and moving in and out a little like he held an ace

            until he cleared his throat

 

            “And?” said Mike, who was ready to rake in the winnings

            with his midnight stick-up on the subway

 

            “It was the weight of her absence,” said Joe, dream-like,

 

            We all looked at him and at each other, as if …

 

            “So what happened,” asked Mike, breaking the ice

 

 

            It was pretty quiet

 

            Finally Mike told Joe he was a morbid son of a bitch and couldn’t 

            leave the premises without at least one beer

 

            And the zombies and vampires took over

            until we all piled into Joe’s car like nothing had happened

 

            Which was the truth, I thought, wasn’t it?

 

            I was the last to be dropped off and I nodded to Joe as he drove away

 

            And he winked and threw his chin up into the air a little

 

            Meaning same time next week

 

            It took a while

            Despite the starless night

            To make it to my door