They pick at each other like scabs
yet never let the wounds
feel exposed under their layers
of regenerating skin
As much as they make bruises
with their nicknames
and laugh it off as effortlessly
as it slipped out their mouths,
They are also the love
that heals all the pain
When one leaves
the other two produce more love
than usual
so that the third is not missed as much
But oh.
when all three sit around the kitchen table
or huddled on the couch
You can feel the rainbow
stretching further
over the earth.

We too, we too, descending once again
The hills of our own land, we too have heard
Far off—Ah, que ce cor a longue haleine—
The horn of Roland in the passages of Spain,
The first, the second blast, the failing third,
And with the third turned back and climbed once more
The steep road southward, and heard faint the sound
Of swords, of horses, the disastrous war,
And crossed the dark defile at last, and found
At Roncevaux upon the darkening plain
The dead against the dead and on the silent ground
The silent slain—