THE ROYAL OAK by Michael Minassian

The last time I had a drink at the Royal Oak,

I saw an old friend sitting alone at the bar,

her hair pulled back in a short pony tail.

At first, I didn’t recognize her:

ten years out of high school

carrying a few extra pounds,

but without the adolescent slouch

we all wore navigating our way out 

of puberty and four years of hell.

When I said hello, she smiled 

and asked me why it took 

so long to move to the next stool.

She said she’d been away 

for a few years, but wouldn’t say where.

We decided to have one more drink together:

A rum and coke, I said, for old time’s sake,

our favorite drink back in the day.

We watched the bartender fix the drinks

and add a wedge of lime to each of our glasses.

Remember those girls, the cheerleader clique,

how mean they were, she whispered.

I nodded, remembering rumors

swirling around her our senior year.

After finishing our drinks,

we ended up in the back seat

of her car having sex.

That’s what I wanted to write, 

but it’s not what happened at all—

I never saw her again,

and the phone number 

she gave me didn’t work.

Surprised when mail arrived at my house

every few months signed 

with her distinctive scrawl;

her letters heavy with punctuation,

my memories like peeling paint

on the sign outside the bar.

MICHAEL MINASSIAN is a Contributing Editor for Verse-Virtual, an online poetry journal. His chapbooks include poetry: The Arboriculturist and photography: Around the Bend. His poetry collections Time is Not a River, Morning Calm, and A Matter of Timing are all available on Amazon. A new chapbook, Jack Pays a Visit, is due out in early 2022. For more information: https://michaelminassian.com