I’m looking at the half-full
glass of black IPA. The waitress
asked me what I wanted
and I pointed to my friend’s beer
saying, “I’ll have that,”
and reached over, moving it
in front of me, taking a sip and
my friend laughed, as he does
each time I do that and
I do that most weeks
but still, He laughs
deeply, fully, and I don’t know why.
Wings are on the way,
smoky and flavorful,
delicious, the best either of us
has had, but no matter,
as we have shared awful meals
and laughed as we wrote
reviews, and blogs, and notes
back and forth, children at school
misbehaving,
sharing a secret joke.
Waitresses giggle
at the easy show,
back and forth,
sit and listen to the
repartee honed over
time and needing no practice,
we should
take it on the road,
we are told.
Finishing each other’s sentences,
like, (how did this happen?)
an old married couple,
speaking in code,
few words,
everything said.
And all things
he knows, as
I can tell him anything,
tell him everything,
and I do,
without reservation,
But still,
our brains are different
even when drumming,
or singing songs
few people seem to know,
while I know his heart,
it is hard to say how.
Though he has saved me
many times,
some unknown
I am sure,
I cannot always say,
or in a way that is clear
for the deeper feelings
are those which must travel
farthest, through the most
sediment of years, lives,
walls erected, fortifications
which can be breached only with
love, and I search for the words
to breach the battlement
but I haven’t
the ammunition.
I can write verse of the moon,
and love, desire and connection,
romance and flesh
for the fairer sex,
but all I can write
for you is this poem.
It will have to suffice.
Adam Byrn Tritt 