john, who used to work on my team,
once dragged me down from the trading room
into a liquor-flooded crevice to bid
on the chance to shatter our loneliness
on a cold Friday. his wife had left him several years before,
their child shouting through the noise as she clicked out
their life together with the closing of a front-door,
as if it were some party she'd mistakenly entered
& awkwardly tried to escape---his words