One More, Then We Go

On this round table one knight in a bottle battles, bereft of shield, sword, his armor a sticky paper label, peeled long-toiled by pointed nails. He stands still, wobbles halted by matchbook shims, a postcard folded thrice. "A dead soldier?" asks the drumline, the bespectacled overseer, a grim and thoughtful reaper of emptiness, a dumper of ashtrays. "Alive, but not well," the response, soon a cold naive amateur takes a happy place in the fold, a body is removed, recycled with ambered brothers breaking in a blue plastic bin.