I don’t send them friend requests,
these boys, now men, who lit
me up like bonfires
in celebrations of my younger days.
Today, they are form-fitting suits
with feet propped up
on corner-office desks,
Blackwater mercenaries
with shaky aim pulling triggers,
traveling salesmen talking fast,
pulling bait and switch. They are
on the border of Iraq and Iran
playing chicken with natives.
They are home in seventeen days,
married last October,
missing a body part I remember well.
They are smiling in photographs
with people I don’t recognize
who don’t write poetry,
who aren’t as beautiful
as me.

© Bryan Borland