I used to eat lunch with him often
And the hotel we would eat at always served this warm crusty bread
And a hot lunch.
I never felt like I had eaten anything if I hadn't had a hot lunch.
And as a child he must have been a fascinatingly weird kid,
In the 1930s I would think.
But then even as an elder some sixty years later
He was the same.
And I believe now that only once one can see the child in such an elder,
Only then does one have a friend.
And this child showed me how
When you take that warm bun
And cut it in half
And press the soft insides down with a spoon
And fill it with the grapes saved from the garnish at the side of your hot meal
It tastes fantastic
And nothing like grape jelly on bread at all
But something new and different
Like the luxury foods of the Great Depression,
Improved upon by distance and by capitalist engineering and by design.
And now, ten years on, the memory of my memories of this friend
Are fickle in the ones that linger and the ones that don't
So I presume the ones that have stayed
Are the ones that have not finished with me yet.
