The joke went around the mahogany table

The joke went around the mahogany table

like a secret currency I couldn't trade.

They were laughing at a black-and-white fable,

a shared history where the colors had stayed.

I looked at my own hand, flat and smooth,

resting beside a palm mapped out in blue veins.

It’s a strange kind of lie, trying to soothe

the fact that I haven't yet felt the same rains.

They are talking about a war or a show

while I sit like a ghost from a century ahead.

I’m the only one here with nowhere to go

who hasn't started counting the days until dead.