Something Remotely Having To Do With, Resembling, or Functioning Like a Drinking Fountain

This, I suppose, is what we call the epiphany; a flash-bang
grenade laid waiting until its slow uncoiling of an explosion.
I have lived upon the backside of a whiplash.

These boys and men sit strewn along a renovated corridor;
they swap nickels and dimes and wisdom and wine –
they know that there is no time like the present to ensure
that a future without regrets will never come. I lay with them,
but am not one with them; an outsider who comes
around to play every once in a while: a negligible distraction.

There is a resonance to their laughter. They speak
with the same voice and body of experience, and they
could never know what awaits them around that corner,
unless, of course, we are talking about this corner, in which
case, they all know what awaits them; namely, a drinking fountain.

They want me to spit knowledge and truth like they know
I can supply. They want answers when I offer only questions,
and there is a metaphor (a simile, at least)
in that drinking fountain, somewhere,
but I’m not looking for it, so I will never find it. I guess
there it is. This moment is lost to me forever.