AN OLD FRIEND ON THE TRAIN

When the train stops at Bayside

My friend David boards though

He died three years ago. In the precise

Hierarchy of high school

He ranked slightly below us;

Our fathers were professionals

His was a printer whom money

Had forbidden to go to college.

We had houses; his family lived

In an apartment. He was pleasant-looking
And athletic and not tall. His family

Were all musical. He played everything;

His father taught recorder on weekends.

He had an exaggerated hatred of falseness

And made me feel guilty when I sang

Molly Malone; not being Irish

I'd no right to a brogue. More than any of us

He was wary, mocking belief, scorning love

He was sturdy, ran doggedly; he was at home

Playing football or the piano or

Standing under the glaring lights

Of the empty parking lot where those
With nowhere to go spent nights

Teasing and testing each other.

Grown-ups said that he, unlike his friends,

Had a head on his shoulders, a head

That had been screwed on right.

He later turned himself inside out;

He later took the word of a malign ghost

Who broke him in pieces.

This never seemed right to me.

Once, a girl told me that I was special

And David was just David but still

She'd rather go out with him.