the three musketeers

The Friendship Series
Installment 2: Hannah and Jack


Paddling down Main Street in a canoe,

how far do you have to go before I forget you?

How many pancakes will it take

to cover the doghouse, to quiet the ache?

The answer is never logical-

something about how ice cream has no bones.

You paddled your way down to Georgia,

and I never forgot the joke.

I hope you still play the french horn,

and have all the ribbons we won

from counting long hours of practicing-

a different color for each crucial sum.

The ribbons on my flute case

were purple, yellow, and lacy green.

The purple was frayed at the edges

that I played with and stroked pridefully.

Before you moved to Georgia,

the summer after the sixth grade,

the three of us: you, me, and the Boy,

were three musketeers on parade.

A tree stump served as our secret computer,

as we searched for the lady in red:

the master thief Carmen San Diego-

oh, the fantastical adventures we had!

My parents asked why I didn't have more friends.

Why not Maggie, or Kristen, or Kate?

But I liked the little world we had,

and didn't fit in with those girls anyway.

When you left, the Boy and I

grew at the same time closer and farther apart.

It was common knowledge he loved me,

though he'd never spoken it.

He was like an old piece of furniture

that pleasantly haunts a room,

the kind you like because it's always been there,

but that's easy to overlook.

When I made friends with misfit, lip-gloss girls,
I missed your chicken laugh.
But most of all I missed the three of us
when friendship was all that we had.