I arrived first at the café,
claiming a table by the window,
watching for that familiar slouch,
that hair I once thought stylish.
He enters, scanning nervously about,
not yet comfortable in his skin,
the way I somehow learned to be,
after decades of necessary practice.
We order the same black coffee,
but he adds three sugar packets,
a sweetness I\'ve since abandoned
for the bitter truth of things.
His eyes widen at my gray hair,
my comfortable shoes, reading glasses,
while I study his unmarked face,
the unweathered map of possibilities.
I want to warn him about Susan,
about taking that teaching job,
about wasting years chasing approval,
about his father\'s final summer.
Instead I ask about his poems,
and listen as he explains them,
with a passion I had forgotten,
with the certainty I\'ve since lost.