A second breakfast….

I’m fortunate to have old friends, who have known me through the different stages of my life. I examine one of those cherished friendships in a poem entitled “The Lakeside Diner” which appears in January 2017 issue of Poetry Breakfast.   Check it out at:http://poetrybreakfast.com or read it below:

The Lakeside Diner

The LakeSide Diner, homemade donuts, no lake,

just a pond, slick and thick as the Navy Bean soup

offered as a lunch special with a half grilled cheese on the side.

We greet each other in the parking lot, admire the October

foliage just turning yellow like a old wedding dress,

a few fallen leaves slippery under our sensible shoes.

We take a seat by the window, two old and good friends

meeting in a strange town, equidistant from our current homes,

hungry for news and reassurance that the other still

breathes and lives and reads, but not as much as she used to.

Once, decades past, we watched our little boys

placing gumdrops on the roof of a gingerbread house,

racing toy trucks to the sofa, while we, then as now, and for years in between,

talked about sacred and quiet things.

Today we order scrambled eggs, no butter, tea,

each weighing private matters of digestion,

trying not to stare too long at the other’s face growing wiser by the minute,

preferring at times to look out at the mallards gliding along

the surface of the scummy water

carrying on as if there will be no winter, no ice, no need to fly south.