TWO COKES BEFORE GRADUATION

TWO COKES BEFORE GRADUATION
For Jonathon Weinert

On the steps behind the street,

a courtyard

with aluminum shadows
on the brick.

We drank Cokes, which may be
redundant to say.

We drank Cokes.

It may be harder next year,
to drink Cokes.

And I’m sure I’ll drink alone
in two years,

when I own the tiny tradition
we unknowingly made, soft

light patterning leaves
as their rustle

returns me to where I began:
without a friend in Louisville.