our five and dime

we miss our
five and dime, Lydia
and me.
we miss
the short walk over
past the old Anderson house.
the coffee shop,
the hardware store,
the alley where the bums
hung out.
we miss our five and dime,
our red vinyl seats where
we could sit all
afternoon
and drink coffee,
eat pie
and talk about
the good old days,
before this, before that
how everything was better
back then.
we miss our five
and dime.
Lydia and me, when
she was around,
we'd go hand in hand
to our little
store, sometimes
stopping to kiss
under a lamp post,
at the beginning of us,
at the edge of town.