Old Friends

I had a dream a few nights ago

about my old friend Davey.

Haven’t seen him in a thousand

He’s an old friend still. We met at a Seven Eleven

(do they still exist? I hope so) in

Washington, D.C. near P Street.

He was buying bubble gum ice cream.

Chew and swallow is how he described

the flavor’s appeal. Turns out he

went to a Quaker Boarding School

with my roommate Sue. We invited him

to dinner and to make a very

long story very short he married another

roommate named Sheryl. Davey then went

medical school, became a psychiatrist

and then, he and Sheryl got divorced and

each married someone else. Davey moved

to Maine. One day in the pandemic he called

to say hello. We hadn’t talked in at least

twenty years but because old friends are always

old friends we talked for a few hours about

every single thing. Talking, we were younger,

happy the way we were then. Happy now

is a little different. Davey would take us all for

a ride in his old car and we’d drive and drive.

Where we were going didn’t matter at all.

We listened to this millions of times.

Jessica wrote this essay today, inspiring my poem.

Old Friends