Drama
by Roger Darnell

the young gent measures his breath,
realizing that their eyes are blazing at his
beneath the brims of their hats, in the thin light.
the air is bitter cold; it stings his inner sanctum.
hadn’t his mother warned him about catching cold?
watch it, lucky says, he’s got a temper! our hero
hudson can’t sit back any longer. he kicks the
nearby bench and feigns enormous outrage.
you say you’re my friends, but I don’t think so.
a lot of other words steam through his mind
but no others pierce the thick silence.
the frigid air presses lucky and friends. a luminance
behind hudson makes him disappear in their squints.
the back-lit boy has betrayed some part of himself
in those previous seconds, for some social gain.
his mother waits patiently.
all his family will sit in judgment.
the group of boys shifts, sniffs, one coughs.
hudson knows his valor is gone;
unless…