Old Boys’ Network

~

one by one, 

we shake our heads

and let smiles break out 

like measles caught freely 

from each other at school,

we’re all old boys

old school friends

together again, it feels like 

Sunday School but it’s Thursday

back in that same room,

we each cradle a mug of tea

and fiddle fold origami-style

our tickets for the raffle

none of us wants to win,

between us half a millennium 

worth of memories swirl 

around, brewing like teabags 

colouring-in our pasts,

old smiles are fractured by 

wrinkles and dentures

eyes a shade dimmer,

if an old photograph is

unveiled like an imposter 

it’s admiringly passed around

hand-to-hand, considered 

studiously, proudly as if 

we’ve been granted the chance 

to hold a champion conker

to enviously marvel at,

we all hurt somewhere and

play medication snap but

rely on this monthly salve

being the best medicine after all

for the price of a cup

of tea and a raffle ticket

*

© Graham R Sherwood  03/24