You changed the baby

While I sipped coffee

In the room you call a den

While you were gone

I stared at pictures of you

And the mister

Up on the mantelpiece

I recall you used to make

A better cup of coffee

But I also recall

I was a better kind of guest

Back in the day when

We had nothing to worry

About but Friday night

There is a crusted kind

Of ambience to this room

Something old and musty

And way too dark for

Your shining light. You smile

As if you know I know all this

But the only time we get

On our knees to search

For anything of value

Is the missing piece to the Playskool

Mobile.

You held the baby

And I looked out the window

To the gray bay beyond the glass.

I remembered with a half-smile

How you always said

You wanted to live near

The water. And I was going to be

A poet, as I recall, and it seems that life

Has thrown us both a curve

I decline a second cup of coffee

And you, with the baby sleeping

In your arms, seem relieved that

You will have some time to

Lie down when I am gone.

Our kisses are chaste;

Our goodbyes brief;

There is more than the salt of the nearby

Bay in the air between us, and it

Hangs there for awhile, then dissipates

In the silent fog of unsaid things

And though we speak the right words

Such as, I’ll see you soon

I know you know

The next time we meet

May never be written on a calendar 

09/06/2003

Author's Note: Dedicated to the proposition that most old friendships do not dissolve from arguments or fights, but from different experiences down different roads. Dedicated, too,to my old friend,HV who inspired the story that became this poem.

Posted on 09/11/2003
Copyright © 2024 Ken Harnisch