You were the first of a select few

many times

and have remained so

both our  lives.

From being my first friend, my beautiful comrade in arms,

the first who was the better part of me and

the shoulder for my head, your unwilling soldier sending

the S.O.S. out to be rescued, to the girl I asked first and who

quite rightly

turned me down. The woman with the fire in her hair

and in her stomach, the guts of a warrior, the compassionate heart of a nurse.