I remember a night half-a-million years ago
when Dan sat in a long bright room
with taupe carpet and plexiglass windows
looking out on old men sipping coffee
looking back at us as if we were zebra
running un-free in black and white
full of sarcasm and high school football scores

He asked me make something agate
as if the consequence of so many young men
doing so many inconsequential things
should be hidden in plain sight
where all of their fathers could find them
and imagine it might matter
someday when they’re filling out applications
to go to school to be engineers
or nothing at all with a degree in English.

So I did make something agate
but i forget now what it was, and whether
it mattered at all. I did it for Dan – or a buck
maybe both. I did it with a balding gentleman
tallying his wins and his losses,
and a killer rolling his eyes to my right
and a little man snarking behind his glasses
behind me as if a million years from now
no one would remember any of this

because in a million years
no one will remember any of this.