I haven’t seen you for five years, since the summer we got our degrees an moved south to the sun and the money – yours much more than mine, I admit. Did you know I was living in Philly? (London didn’t work out much for me.) Now they call you the “cad” and I’ve gone back to school. Now, you’re famous, I’m not, but I didn’t press “send.”
God’s sake, Bradley, what sort of reunion d’you think this would be? I’ve spent much of the week with your email. You’ve made it on my Eastern Seaboard! – well, not mine (you know what I mean) – and I’m jealous, believe it or not, that you’re “yum” and I’m not; that your name’s in the paper – mine’s not; that I never knew Claire. You, a lawyer! And infamous lover! I’m not. Don’t press “send.”
Matthew Hart
The author, a Ph.D student at the University of Pennsylvania, comes from Manchester, England. He studied at the University of Edinburgh, where he knew Bradley Chait, sender of the infamous “Brad the Cad” e-mail messages.
This is the sixth in a year-end series of commissioned poems based on Inquirer headlines. This one was based on an editorial titled “Claire’s mistake.”