4=5

The Same

my first friend was a girl,

my cousin and me in a carriage

that I remember only in

vague mental pictures;

playing games together in

the schoolyard later—her snapping
her fingers, showing off, me
frustrated at myself because
I couldn't but proud of her even as
she teased me.  her confidence

and force of will bursting out

in laughter—

over the years I have made many

female friends

and I try and treat them as

they are: the queens and

the angels of every situation—

sometimes lacking a little

grace, sometimes downright cruel,
but always beautiful.

though I can

occasionally come off

as a jester or a puck, it is perhaps
this exaltation of the female that
has kept me at once alone and forever
comforted by women, if mostly from a distance.

I’m always working my

way up the royal court till we find

each other—me and this glowing

angel-queen of time, whomever  or
wherever she may be.

it was an association I learned as

a child that boys and girls are

so different in how they are the

same.