Poem: School Reunion

I am not as foolish as I once was, as is necessary,
We arrange everything cheerfully – same old pubs
So we can be back again. One day you wake up
And find that you are jealous of the young, terrible.

We tell dirty jokes and drink cider from litre bottles
And reminisce about long hot Summers we made up –
Must have, all it does now is rain. Bills marked in red
Stacking up in the hall, ignored and mounting.

Sometimes one of us will go home with the other
And have fast sad sex to break the boredom –
Once or twice leading to trips across the Irish sea,
Both chipping in for terminations, shared Catholic guilt.

We never talk about the things we thought we would be
All remembering the time when we had dreams –
And how that turned out. We are poets and actors
Working in offices, weighed down with disappointment.