Up earlier than expected after a late night with friends,

old and new.

​

Pizza and beer. An array of brews curated, my dear friend

told me, by a mustachioed youth at the grocery.

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And conversation, the first good unguarded talks I’ve had
in a long while. Drawing on shared experience, the deep well.

​

Intrigued by the new folks. New to town, he’s a handyman;

she’s a counselor. Both fixers.

​

I’m not a particularly clever man. Less easy

to be around in my middle age, I guess.

​

Nights like this have become fewer. My friendships
have become fewer. Blame busyness. Blame politics. Blame lack

​

of trying. Contentment. I’ve changed. I’ve stopped
putting stickers on things—car windows, water bottles, laptops.

​

I’m done air drumming at stop signs; my singing in the car

has ceased. The new U2 album didn’t change my life.

​

I chased pop art and caught only a patchy gray tail.

But last night buoyed me like the ocean beneath a log.

​

I felt uprooted, free to float
wherever the conversation flowed, toward whatever beach

​

I would roll up on. And my friends were there,

heaving me onto the shore with their watery hands.