MICHAEL MINASSIAN’s poems and short stories have appeared recently in such journals as, Live Encounters, Lotus Eater, and Chiron Review. He is also a Contributing Editor for Verse-Virtual, an online magazine. His chapbooks include poetry: The Arboriculturist and photography: Around the Bend. His poetry collections, Time is Not a River and Morning Calm are both available on Amazon. For more information: https://michaelminassian.com

My childhood friend Eddie

called the other day,

It’s your turn, he said,

then hung up.

It took me a while

to figure out

what he meant.

When we were kids,

we dug a hole in the space

under his front porch

and buried his father’s

chess set, some marbles

and a dead goldfish—

The week before,

his father had walked out,

vowing never to return.

Eddie stopped

feeding the goldfish,

and smashed the marbles

with a hammer.

When his mother saw us

under their front porch,

she asked what we were doing.

Digging a hole to China,

Eddie replied.

She nodded her head,

be careful, she barked,

then went back in the house

to have another drink.

A few years later, Eddie and I

had an argument over a girl,

and he punched me.

I just looked at him

and walked away;

we never spoke again.

I guess that’s what

he was talking about

when he called

all those years later.

At some point,

time stands still,

circles around,

and catches us

at the back door.