After A Pitcher of Beer at Antlers Pub, I Believed I Was Brave

And walked with my friend Mike to the State Street Pier. 
Mike was funny, a good drinking buddy, and fearless. 

He pissed from the edge of the pier, then pole vaulted 
over the railing and landed hard with both feet, 

right on the lake below. He skidded 
on the ice and pretended he was surfing. 

It was probably 10 degrees out. 
“Come on,” he said. “It’s solid. Look.”

He jumped up and down. He did a little dance. 
“What are you afraid of?” he said. 

If he asked me now, I would say, “Everything,” 
but I was young and we’d been drinking 

and I didn’t want to spoil things. 
I climbed over the railing. 

I put one foot, then the other on the ice. 
I took two steps onto the lake and stopped. 

I waved at Mike and tried not to look worried. 
Mike laughed and did his best Village People. 

He spelled out Y-M-C with his arms 
and waved at me to add the A, 

but instead I held still. I looked out 
in the direction I thought was Canada. 

There were lights out there and a dark 
lump that may have been land and which 

was most likely Ohio. 
Canada seemed exotic and far away.

Year later, I’d join the airlines 
and see the world and not like the way

they promise in the Army. Mike would join
the Army. Neither of us would get the dream

we’d spend many other drunk nights dreaming –
a houseboat off Key West, a life of reading

and drinking and making art.
 We didn’t know that then. That night

the ice felt sturdy. I felt like a god,
walking on water, though 

I didn’t go further
than two steps. Still I knew 

what Simone Weil once said, 
“If the desire itself is strong enough,

the desire itself will create
the light,” and so I believed

if I really wanted, 
I could make it all the way across.