Old friend

“Tell me now, old friend, when you gonna let me be?”     The Allman Brothers Band

I don’t quite know how it came to this,

but if I have to take up arms against you

I’ll draw them from the auction houses

and antique shops; old muskets, sabres.

I’ll be relieved when I can’t find, let

alone afford them, and I’ll grow calm.

Gone are our nights of righting the world,

of drinking like we were bailing it out –

we knew too much about each other

and nothing at all of ourselves.

Richie McCaffrey’s collection Cairn was published recently by Nine Arches Press