WHEN WE SPEAK OF OLD FRIENDS PRINT

Once I told him he owed me thirty dollars
          only because I knew he’d pay up. I never said

I thought his girlfriend was prettier than mine. I thought
          about that often. Sometimes I’d let him win at games.

If I knew he was bored and in trouble I’d start a fight
          at the bar to make him smile. He always paid tabs.

He didn’t look anything like my brothers. He laughed
          just because. He walked everywhere and marked new tags

in the neighborhood with gold stars. He had a map. He had
          a disability check every month. He was fine. It was he

who swam the Wabash from Terre Haute to Lafayette. He lied
          for a good story. He was one-hundred and thirty-three still

growing. Before he left and went somewhere else a few men
          were beaten outside a 7-11. We went there all the time.

Then the cashier started watching me. If good-bye was a style
          you wouldn’t think of giant fires. But he did.

Nicholas Reading is the author of the chapbook The Party In Question, Burnside Review Press, 2007. His poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in many journals, including Bat City Review, jubilat, Nimrod, Painted Bride Quarterly, and The Cincinnati Review.