mint chocolate
with your ringlets
tied and tangled
the color of straight coffee
the rest of you life coffee, to
just with a little cream.
We laugh
raise our eyebrows
shake our heads
but laugh again.
Even now, wellington boots still bring you to mind.
And the sock monkey that you made me
so many years ago
is still sitting on my dresser
smile stitched on its face
staring at the other wall
its button eyes my favorite shiny black
and you are still here to
your lovely eyes my favorite shiny black
do you remember
when we would sing along to our favorite song
and try to bake
but we thought we knew better than the book
so we ended up with things like 'chocolate mountain.'
but of course we ate it anyway.
Do you remember
catching snowflakes on our tongues
and helping each other from falling down
along the potholed, slippery ice
cookie crumbs still clinging to our mittens.
I still know the words
to the handshake we made up

not quite a secret
because we liked to show it off
and your laugh is still the same
as it was
when we made it up.
Remember when we would lounge out on the couch
eating raw cookie dough from the old blue plastic mixing bowl
laughing at Gilmore Girls
and each other
and anything at all
even if it wasn't remotely funny.
and the flannel plaid pajamas that you loaned me
and I never gave back
still fit
their cuffs and sides more dull
but softer, to
like an old friend
well known
but never thrown away
and all the other clothes we shared
just a little big on me then
are folded away
lost to the bowels of time
but they wouldn't fit either of us anymore.
I've never tried to write about my friends before
I thought it would sound too stiff
and I was right.