Originally published in Planet Magazine No. 40 (December 2003).
“Do you remember
the year
we fought the revenant gods
on Syrtis Major IV?”
The old man’s infrascan
leaked a drip
a trickle
a single drop
down his lined cheek,
passing over
the ancient marks of plasta-sculp.
He tilted back the stein
and glugged.
His after-smack
was plaintive.
“Those days, they were the ghosts.”
He turned to send
his organ-eye
around the crowded urban pub.
“Now it’s us.”
He placed the empty stein
on the dray-hide bar,
servo-motor whining slightly,
and turned without
another word,
and walked out.
The young crease-suits
parted to let him pass,
like a mirk-swamp ripple
over a towbadder.
I put the stein
in the rinser,
shook my left head
over old friends,
old times,
and changed
the channel on the hd.
Poem © 2003 by Nancy Wilcox
Artwork © 2003 by Romeo Esparrago
