What Was It? ..... Poem by RIC BASTASA

the conversations
are getting boisterous
as the night had grown
deeper in the
hours of our kind of
boredom

what we talk about:
our sickness and our medicines
our past, the nostalgia that
should have made us
livelier,

as Dante begins to recall
how his lady finally said yes for
the grand wedding of the
century in that old dusty town

as Tony brags about his ladies
much younger that we used to know
those who were proclaimed
queen of hearts

as Rudy recalls story by story
his travels from New York
to Nigeria

and i yawned to all these
as i was getting more sleepy
each memory that i could not really
relate to
and finally i said: i have more
birthdays to come,
we have more food to eat tomorrow,
we have more bottles of beer in the ref
and more barbecue to grill

and i reminded them
in the middle of that suspenseful recalling
of those unfinished adventures of the
old mind, the tired brain, the overpumping
of nostalgic memories,

the night is not young anymore
we have to go to sleep
and dream some more and then wonder
the following morning:
what was it? why i could not remember?