“Summer of ‘89”
for Kevin Miller
Strangers from both coasts of America meet
in Dublin, share a room at a bed and breakfast,
discover they’re both teachers, both baseball fans,
become fast friends, spend summer writing
poetry then, through old fashioned letters,
(the kind that come in envelopes)
remain friends for 33 years. Sounds like a plot
for a Hollywood “buddy film” but truth can hold
more happiness than fiction like the memory
of afternoons sitting cross-legged
on St. Stephen’s Green, lunch time crowds,
the music, the floating Frisbees, how good
crusty edged sandwiches taste garnished
with Celtic song and brotherly conversation.
Two American guys in Ireland, a summer,
some poems, and friendship that didn’t end
in a long handshake at Shannon airport
as Aer Lingus waited with wings of green.