After a Class Reunion

It is easy to be friends.
Having walked out of every room,
all rooms are full. What troubles me
is neither his car nor his garden.

Maybe it's the wine, or that jolly uncle,
the life of every party who laughs too loudly
at every joke. Maybe it's the silence
we hear, having walked out of every room

alone, with pieces of memory lodged
in the mind like a puzzle. It is easy
to be friends again after indulging in nostalgia,
in our grandfather stories crafted to an art,

to have said, we were classmates after all,
we were friends for a decade, we kept in contact
all these years by e-mail, after all.

What troubles me is not the wine,
not that uncle. It is easy to be friends;
after that, it is easy to become strangers again.