Perversion

//perversion

My open window presses against
scarlet bougainvillea,
blooming for the first
time after an apparently
killing freeze
two years ago.
I had a rival,
we were both jokers, trying
for laughs, the same
age, similar problems,
snapped at each other,
jealously pulling away when
the other one won the first laugh.
But she got terribly
ill. Then I saw this little
local competition was gone,
but it was less fun,
without her sense of humor.
She lost her ‘mad’ too and we had time to laugh together.
The bougainvillea, frozen, can seem dead for years,
and then surprise you when it reappears. Old friends
cannot. I still laugh a lot, but I miss her quick wit.