Until The Streetlights Told Us To Go Home

Are you ever standing in line at the grocery store
or at the bank
as you casually let your gaze
drift around the room
and you see a face
that could swear was your best friend
from the 4th grade?
One of those friends you have as a kid
who you only know for a short time
a year
 a summer
but for that time
you were the best of friends
laughing & playing
everday
like it would never end.
And then one day
either
they just didn't come back to school
or they made the dramatic summertime bike ride to your house
and the tearful explanation about how they gotta move.
You go on
gaining & losing more friends
the years pass with regularity
and you forget.
Then a stranger's face will remind you
of Paul, the kid from church, with the Indiana Jones videogame
or Johnny, the Albino kid, that you'd play X-Men with
and you stand there thinking about it
studying their face, finally deciding,
no, it couldn't be.
You watch them walk out
you pay for your things
and you go on
forgetting
those days of
laughing & playing
laughing & playing
until the streetlights came on
and told us all to go home.