Beef

I.

I’ve had a love affair with red meat my whole life.
Why should it end now? I’m assuming you do too
or how else would you have garnered such a nickname?
It’s not the only thing we have in common though. Stan Lee
wrought and Jack Kirby etched heroes, Ozzy and Iommi licks
of thundering yet tasteful heaviness, and talking about movies
until our tongues lull with dryness are just some mutual passions.

While some similarities hail from just having damn good style.

Upon integrating myself into your circle of friends,
people would often mistake me for you. To be fair,
we’re both bearded fellows on the fluffier side
who wear glasses. So if they entered a room
and caught a glance of me sideways
or from the back then I’d often receive a salutation
or greeting intended for you, which would sound
something like, “Hey, Bee… Alan.”

I didn’t mind as I’ve been mistaken for much worse. Yet recognition
and understanding are funny things, because they work in other ways.

II.
We stood in an apartment of a girl I wanted who didn’t want me,
at least not in the way I wanted her. Jovial would be the way
that one could describe your usual visage, but it darkened in a pensive pallor
that night
in a parlor of Marlboro smoke and drunks destructively dj’ing,
I asked you what was wrong and you tried to give me the brush off,
but I persisted and you told me a tale of loss that added another dimension
that I had not known existed and I listened because you needed an ear 

and you thanked me and we were closer and I knew we were friends then.