The Year of the Joke

I found the Polaroid behind the stamps.

You are wearing the traffic cone like a crown,

your face washed out by the flash

and the cheap beer we drank in the parking lot.

We laughed until we couldn't breathe.

We thought the world was a thing we could break.

But looking at it now, in the kitchen light,

your eyes look tired and the cone looks heavy.

There is a brown ring of coffee

on a 'Hello My Name Is' sticker

stuck to the back of the frame.

I don't know where you live now.

It isn't a joke anymore.