Twenty-five years ago
when we were both still drinking
all the time and the Depot Lounge
was our favorite spot,

Davey was the undisputed king
of the Black Knight table. When Ron
replaced it with Space Invaders, Davey
stopped going to that bar.

“You don’t play a video game,
you learn it. You play
pinball,” Davey always said.
“You don’t learn life,

you play it.” I ran into him
the other day at Shaw’s Market
and he found a way to say it again,
still pissed about it, even as his son

moped around the two of us, these aging men
bitching about time and stupid changes
while he watched the cute blonde in the produce section
stack grapes in neat rows so the customers

could easily pick them off one bunch at a time.