I remember your step brother saying in his semi nasally high pitched voice
rather matter of factly "most modern art is nonsense anyways"
and nothing following it
our group walking across the street from the pie shop
and maybe I was even internally agreeing with him
while at the same time feeling like an interviewer cut short of all his best questions
"so tell me what you really believe?"

later again the memory popped into my head
this time a kind of theorem intrinsically proved correct
and again somehow disturbing
until I quickly remembered that 'oh' right
all of fucking life is nonsense
that's what had slipped my head at the time
the choices when we walked into the bakery built like a home
surrounded on all sides at a saloon for circular
breaded desserts

walking down the street past the stores
I noticed (probably not at the time just experiencing)
your dad as the god given leader of the pack
merely by his ability to say more things than most everyone else,
your step sister undoubtedly the most quiet either because she was the only non-couple
or because she was well medicated enough to not feel
the weighty obligation of residual conversations

inside the art gallery
somehow you and me were separated (I know this)
because I was standing in front of some piece of art
and your dad appeared behind me
at which point it must have been appropriate time for me to make up
for the other times when I had not been speaking (as much as him)
and I found some easily thought insult (in a bored tone)
about how this particular art was shit
and your dad maybe snickering
because it was true

what I vaguely now remember (or dont)
is me trying to half hazardly then explain the piece of art we had seen together
some months before--this kind of epic fat hanging albatross
from the ceiling: skin peeled up and out of the horse's back
so that he was left hanging there
not like a slab of butcher's meat
but some kind of serial creator's galaxy where pain is a necessary evil--
and instead of getting very far with my explanation (if anywhere),
I just kind of trailed off
you maybe backing me up
with your approval
but then also detaching yourself (at the same time as me)
since we had already done this periodically
through the night
first during bar-bec-que
(then during pie