(for Deborah Meltvedt)

She’s embarrassed to ask, but my friend whose birthday
is nine days before mine is coming in near midnight
on a train from Fresno,

and, late night writer that I am, how can I not offer
to pick her up? Especially when she’ll be chugging
into the Art Deco train station in our city,

and, if I manage to snag a photo or two, there
could be a poem in it—something about friendship
being like a train with some hackneyed metaphor

that has stalled far down the track. But give me
a minute or five. Let me stand on this windy platform
waiting for her suitcase to arrive, my heart

smiling at my fine writing friend, my walking buddy,
whose presence lifts me in ways I can’t describe—
she herself a fine present and the first to wish

me many happy returns—as the clock ticks into
the wee hours of the day that commemorates
the completion of my 66th trip around the sun,

sending me into yet another wondrous year.