Over Breakfast

by Kevin Grauke

A slightly famous actor, once loved
by our younger selves, has died, I see
on my morning feed. I tell you immediately,
just as you would tell me. The two of us
are eating eggs and toast, drinking coffee,
and scrolling through our phones, looking
to see what happened while we slept,
which, as always, was both nothing and
much too much of everything.

Oh, no! you say. That’s terrible!
How sad. I always loved him.

I know, I say. Me, too.

Soon, we’ll return to our phones,
our pale toast, our dark coffee,
and the comfort of our entwined
lifetimes, but now you ask,
What was the first thing
we ever saw him in? We sit in silence,
each of us returning to the days
of our brighter, shinier selves,
back before our lovely children,
back before the aches, back before
our high regard for midday naps.

I think I remember but say nothing.
There’s no rush to solve this. You
will remember soon enough; you
always do. Before you say his name,
you’ll smile just a tiny bit. You’ll be
picturing us on that summer evening
at the Inwood all those many Junes ago,
and knowing this will be much more
than I’ll need for the rest of the day.

Kevin Grauke has published work in such places as The Threepenny Review, The Southern Review, Quarterly West, and Cimarron Review. He’s the author of the short story collection Shadows of Men (Queen’s Ferry Press), winner of the Steven Turner Award from the Texas Institute of Letters. He lives in Philadelphia.