10 Poems About Friendship for Love, Gratitude and Connection

You missed the train by half a minute.
I had already bought the tickets,
so we stood beneath the departures board
and made a meal of being annoyed.
You blamed your shoelace.
I blamed the station clock.
Neither of us blamed the day.
When the next train came,
you gave me the window seat,
as though this small delay
had been arranged for my benefit.

Do not make it elegant.
Leave the icing uneven near the edge.
Use too much lemon.
Hide the candles in the cutlery drawer
because she will find them otherwise.
No roses. No fondant.
Write her name in the worst handwriting you have.
She trusts a cake more
when it looks as though it had to be persuaded.
At seven, turn off the kitchen light.
Let the match flare briefly.
Let her complain about the singing.
She will keep the paper plate.

You came with a book
and did not open it.
The rain worked slowly
through the shoulders of your coat.
When I came out,
we compared our bad news:
your parking ticket,
my knee.
Then you stood,
careful as a ladder,
and walked beside me
to the corner.

You fixed the bicycle while I was asleep,
though the chain had only slipped.
You tightened what did not need tightening,
found the bell beneath the hedge,
and wiped the black grease from your thumb
on the newspaper I had not read.
In the morning, I saw it by the gate:
not new, not shining,
just ready for the road.
There are people who arrive carrying answers.
You arrived carrying a wrench,
which was better.
I rode as far as the bakery,
then turned back before the bread cooled,
wanting to tell you how the street looked
from something made reliable again.

We fed the machines with coins
and watched our lives turn behind glass:
my work shirt, your red towel,
two socks that had never met before.
You told me about the landlord.
I told you about the phone call.
The dryers kept their round argument,
all heat and turning.
A child pressed both hands
to the window of Machine Six.
We waved as if we knew her.
She laughed, then ran outside.
By the time our clothes were folded,
the difficult things had changed size.
Not gone. Not solved.
Small enough to carry home.

You sent the jar in a box of old newspapers,
wrapped so carefully that nothing could happen to it.
Still, one plum had opened at the seam.
Purple sweetness marked the weather report,
the crossword, a photograph of a dog.
I cleaned the glass with a cloth
and placed it on the highest shelf.
For three months I did not taste it.
I liked the thought of you somewhere
with a tree, a ladder, a kitchen,
and enough fruit to give away.
When winter came, I opened the lid.
The room filled with a brightness
that was not quite summer
and not quite memory.
I ate one plum standing up.

For six months, we took the same bus home.
You sat near the back with a violin case.
I stood by the centre doors, pretending
not to count the stops.
One Thursday, the driver braked hard.
Your case struck the pole.
I caught it. You caught my wrist.
Neither of us said thank you.
The next week, you showed me a song
written in pencil on the back of a receipt.
It had three notes I could recognise
and one that seemed to belong elsewhere.
At the final stop, snow had begun.
You played the first line under the shelter.
The driver waited with the engine running.
I missed my turning and listened
until the streetlights went out.

Next Saturday, we say,
we will walk past the reservoir.
Next Saturday, your sister is visiting,
and my sink has started to leak.
Next Saturday, we will bring sandwiches,
though neither of us has bought bread.
Next Saturday, the forecast changes.
The dog is ill. The train is cancelled.
Someone has mistaken Tuesday for Friday.
Next Saturday, we say,
and the week folds itself around the promise.
Years later, I pass the reservoir alone.
The water is dark with evening.
I send you a photograph.
You reply with the same words,
which have not failed us yet.

After you moved, I found three things behind the radiator: a blue marble, a receipt from the cinema, and the small plastic horse you said was unlucky. I put them on the windowsill while the rooms emptied around me. The echo made every footstep sound official. For a week, I kept reaching for my phone to send you photographs of nothing—the stripped wall, the dust shaped like leaves, the square of clean paint where your calendar had been. Then your new address arrived in a message without punctuation. I saved it under your name. At night, headlights crossed the ceiling of the empty room, briefly arranging the familiar furniture.

You drew the coast in green,
though the map was only for the train.
Here, you said, we should stop.
Here, we should eat something salty.
Here, you should see the harbour
when the fishing boats return.
The route was never chosen.
The map stayed folded in my desk
through two jobs and one bad winter.
Now the paper has softened at the creases.
Your handwriting leans toward the sea.
I cannot tell whether the town names
are instructions or wishes.
I open it on the table.
Outside, a gull crosses the window,
carrying nothing I can see.