To all the girls I loved before:
Annette was the first

Perky and raven haired
That smile caught me when I was seven
Ensnaring me forever in the web of lost
Romance to which I remain prey
Through this very hour

Aloof and beautiful and so far away
Gorgeous in her countenance
And loved through a television screen
So rabidly I was afraid sometimes
I’d crash the tube with my hungering
Hands

Aware I was not alone
That my adulation and admiration
And adoration was shared in secret
By so many I called friends .
Dreaming of nights when I could be fireman or
Knight, saving her from imagined monsters;
Flying like Superman to her side
Should she ever call.

The phone never rang. Sigh.
It did not deter me from knowing
My nascent lusts would be stirred again
When I watched her evolve from
Mouseketeer to teen idol
And knew forever I had thrown
In with the lot of unrequited men
Who would wreak love’s havoc on other hearts.

She was my first, and in my ageing heart,
I hold her portrait dear, and there,
While I go on, she will always live.

04/13/2013

Author's Note: RIP, Annette Funicello. Your beauty sent me on a quest I'd like to think is not yet ended, and for that I will always thank you.

Posted on 04/13/2013
Copyright © 2025 Ken Harnisch