Dominique Bechard Danse Macabre with Field Guide to Geologic Waste I was reading with no chance of retaining anything            that might console. Only ten minutes, and so much lost to a King St. vodka bar, tailings of days chasing wanhope with tonic, phoning            family members with nothing to report besides the salacious and the macabre we carefully fail to mention for each other’s sake.            I can’t account for why I end the day by undoing the day’s paltry attempts at poise. Deliberately alone, on New Year’s Eve,            a barman offered me a thin pill, and I continued to chart overburden for a geology minor I would never complete, the rudiments of which            have been cast through memory’s clamor and sluice. Later that night, a chance meeting with an old friend, homeless since highschool,            with a plan to escort loved ones to a location with berries. I proposed the James Bay Lowlands, but didn’t have the heart to mention            bears, nearby chromite mines. Friend, you will be found wanting everywhere.