pictures of you again, and they call back your animal
smell, the softness of the flannel you wore, the softness
of your voice, I always had to lean so close to hear
that your soft hair tickled my face. Jason's wool.
Your paint-stained hands, great thumbs, the stink of your
great white feet, beached whales. the celebration
when we came to an elevator, when we came to the
ice-cream-vending-machine
(that deserves its very own line); fantastic; your manic eyes
like animals, like animals, but somehow
each day you were in clothes, buttoned right. it was like
a miracle, or maybe like a sin. You and your clumsy limbs,
the gawk of your height, golden-haired giant, monster, muse, me
moving always closer to you, me drawn always closer--
phoenix, phantasm, there's something miraculous
about the fact that your long eyelashes and mine
collided, July, our shyest sleeves kissing,
about the fact that I ate your radishes: you taught me
that anyone's learnable, even a prophet,
even the least earthly prophet.
