Celeste, last night arrived like a warrior
Full of the spunk of youth.
Words were sparking in the dark
And lovers who didn’t believe they had it
In them actualized their own potential,
Protesters thronged the halls of justice,
Some going away deranged.The video was called Don’t Look Back,
From which you were protected
By your classical grounding.
Even this morning I bear the pain of it,
Dylan’s angel beauty augmented
By his words of fire.I want to tell you so much but where to begin?
The New Yorker Theater down the block
was where I saw it first.
A Food Emporium stands there now
(Waxed apples and taste-free tomatoes
And meats that are not for me)
Or maybe it was the next block down.
Sarah was with me, an artist
Who did look back and offered
wrathful bile, saying
He’s a genius a genius
You’ll never be anything
You’re not even smart
All you have is your sensitivity
As we returned to her parents’
Four-bedroom apartment
Along Riverside Drive.They are gone, the apartment
And the second home they owned
Given up to strangers.
A card came from Sarah
Over Christmas in the block letters
Of her children’s hand informing me
Of her welfare status and the tissues
In her ears to shield her from
The vipers on the tongues raucous kids
Determined to torment her days.Oh Celeste, you should know this too,
That the phone rang far into this night
That the moon had spurned
And I was there to answer a man-child
All alone saying he wanted to drink
And drink himself into an eternity
That glowed with his own promise fulfilled
So he could be the brightest star in the firmament
And was able to love him with my own understanding,
Suggesting he pray for half the time that we had been
On the line and access his own true divinity
And in so doing mere with the larger entity,
They becoming us and we becoming them.Celeste, let this be a record of where things stand
Before they shift again so you don’t ever
Lose sight of me in the space you allotted me to have.
January 2004
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