BREATHING LESSON by Alice Knight

They sit huddled together each Thursday,
four old men in a booth at McCafe,
their voices rising, falling, as they replay
a baseball game in, let’s see,
that would have been 1982-’83.

Any woman sipping mocha in the next booth,
would believe the accuracy of their remembering
to be unquestionable, know, also,
that two or three of them will forget
to pick up milk on the way home, but one
may detour to buy See’s chocolates
for a wife who will
stand in her hallway,
dimpling at the ceiling, momentarily
smoothing the creases around her mouth
while making a mental shopping list
and thinking how much time she wasted
trying to fix him.