To Frankie

Oh, Frankie, five or six decades have passed since we last saw one another, We'd probably pass on the street now and have not a hint of recognition. I still come across a photo or two of us together in the box of old black and white glossies. You and I posing in our crisp white Holy Communion suits, arms around each other in your back yard. I think I heard that you're the CEO of a prominent New England hospital these days. That is if you haven't already retired. It was most likely in the second or third grade when you moved away. I suppose we really were our own "first best friends", which seems to be something meaningful in and of itself. I know we bonded easily and spent days playing till the sun went down. But my most vivid memory of you, Frankie, was when the neighborhood kids circled around the two of us on my front lawn and watched as we went at each other with fists flailing and noses bloodied...for a reason that I can never, ever remember.