She tells me one of the weirdest things
I ever asked her to do was drive across
country to an alpaca show.

I kind of thought the alpacas were
a metaphor until we got there, she says.
I say what for. She says I don’t know,
just definitely not alpacas.

It was mid-July,
our warm breath sat in the air
of the hay-lined arena. The hair styling
of a black and white alpaca got us talking
about Elvis.

He began as the face on the covers
in my best friend’s dad’s record collection,
whose song about a Hound Dog
we were forced to howl
on the hard wooden floors of
our primary school days.

I only grasped
the symbolism of it many years
later – the way time passes
and relationships fail.

The alpacas were just alpacas
at the time
and had nothing meaningful to say
about our youth or friendship,

as they posed for snapshots
capturing the absurdity of it all,
oblivious animals thrown
together briefly.

This piece first appeared in The Pangolin Review.