Our lives have glaring differences – but that’s what keeps our friendship going

This week, poet and artist Frieda Hughes catches up with a childhood friend and reflects on their years-long bond

SCHOOL FRIEND

The garden earth, baked to a crust, has pulled itself apart,

The fissures big enough to swallow whole mice

As the rain falls elsewhere, and the dry air

Sucks the last of the juice from saplings.

Into this heatwave my friend arrived,

Always a day older since we met at thirteen

Bearing tail feathers, eggs, an orchid and champagne.

Our glaring differences have weathered the years;

Her three children to my none,

My three divorces to her one.

We wear our skin more loosely now

Then we did at sixteen,

In matching denim halter-necks and shorts

In a Death Valley summer from the Mojave

We dangled ourselves like bait to see who bit,

Testing our new bodies for looks and purpose –

The vehicles in which we would spend the rest of our lives.

Now we compared journeys, studying the roadmaps of each other’s faces,

All the wrong turnings, right choices, wrong times and right places,

And more yet to come.