I dread them when they come to visit me
on FaceBook or on MySpace—to remind
me what I was back then: the silly hat,
prodigious eating and, sadder, the way
I treated Ethel Muggs and ran up bills
at Pop Tate’s Malt Shoppe; and they all ignore
the fact that I was second in our class
(behind Dilton); or that I could outrun
the fastest track-team guys, had expertise
in baseball and gymnastics—or the time
Professor Flootsnoot proved it was my brain,
active at high velocity, that burned
so many calories I never gained
an ounce of fat despite all that I ate.
But they recall the mounds of hamburgers,
the pizzas (twelve of them) swallowed one day
(the record stands unbroken); never do
they note I was a loyal friend, played drums
in Archie’s band; or how I brought some joy
into Anita’s life. They cannot know
the pain that Joani Jumpp brought when we split
and found each other and then split again.
Always the same: the good we do is lost,
the silliness lives on, at least for them.
I go by Forsythe now, but when they call
or come up on computer, without fail
its “Jughead!” And then comes the litany
of incidents remembered, ones that seem
to style me as fool—from those who live
in high school still—still sitting in Pop Tate’s.