Birthday Greetings

Birthday Greetings.

He rings me once a year- on my birthday- the old man
I went to school with hundred years ago, after there
had been a long war and our town looked as unpainted
as down town Havana, when no one had cars except
spivs and the police and there weren’t carbon foot print
in the sky; he rings to remind me how old I’m.

Childhood resentment never dies, his mother worked
in a cake shop, mine was putting sardines in tins, so
if I wanted cakes I had to let him win when we played;
now he rings and goes on about our banal illnesses, we
old men have to endure, and when he finally hangs up
I feel depressed and in a need of a drink.