There was man I never knew,
spoke to me when last we met
he had a nearly empty bottle
and a grin I won’t forget.
He tossed a newspaper aside
and lit another cigarette
before he told me to sit down
so he could try and learn me yet.

He said,

I think, therefore I drink
until I can’t think anymore
and I stack cans on the table
’till I end up on the floor.
Well all this time we spend together,
I can’t fathom what it’s for
so get all your shit together,
once you’re out I’ll lock the door

when I said I hadn’t known him
he replied that I was dumb.
He knew exactly where I’d been
and knew where I was coming from.
Then he made a sidelong motion
toward the doorway with his thumb
and swore, he’d never talk to me again
and neither, to his son

so I digressed and I departed
heading south, as was my plan,
wondering what I had just witnessed,
if I’d understood that man.
did he need those empty bottles?
why’d he keep all of those cans?
was he stacking them in towers
just like castles made of sand?

All the details swirled about me
but soon enough I did not fret,
for all the strange things that I’d heard
had dripped away like summer’s sweat
and as I traveled ever southward
that man was nothing, you can bet,
but a name I can’t remember
and a grin I won’t forget