Remains

a golden shovel after Alex Dimitrov’s
‘Together and By Ourselves’

A slight that turns friends back into the people
they were before you knew them. What they are
still trying to become. The art of aging is mostly
learning to haul across the days what
someone else asked you to carry. All that they
said and did, and also didn’t. If memory can’t
be trusted, which of its lies should we keep
or disprove, and what will it cost us? And
the truth, a neon sign long ignored, keeps
blinking: you were alone, even with them.

*

Shane Schick is the founder of a publication about customer experience design called 360 Magazine. He lives in Whitby, Ont. with his wife and three children. More: shaneschick.com/poetry. Twitter: @shaneschick