My Friend

by Cynthia Fike

My gift is words, he says.
His lips turn up, smiling.
I can’t help but smile back.

Once I fell,
and he picked me up
with poetry.

And he listened to me—
until I had nothing left
to say but thanks.

We sat under palm trees,
Fronds swinging with the wind.
Words picked up and swirled around us,
tangling our lives—