In the final hour, our lady—Of
the electric rosary, Of the highway,
by then Of the snows mostly—was
the man he’d always been really,
though, yes, we’d sometimes forgotten.
Still, even while he lay fanning,
as one might any spent flame, where
it was hot, between his legs, and
saying it didn’t much matter anymore
about dying, what came of having
come too often, perhaps, to what in
the end had fallen short of divine
always, he said that more than the
bare-chested dancers and all-conquering
bass-line that had marked his every
sudden, strobe-lit appearance,
at precisely the same moment, in all of
the city’s best clubs; more than
the just-heated towels and the water
he’d called holy in those windowless,
too thinly walled, now all but
abandoned bath houses, he regretted
the fine gowns that he’d made, just
by wearing them, famous; and then,
half, it seemed, to remind us, half
himself, he re-created the old shrug,
slowly raising from his hospital
robe—not green, he insisted, but
two shades, maybe three, shy of
turquoise—one shoulder to show
the words still tattooed there:
Adore me; for a moment, it was
possible to see it, the once
extraordinary beauty, the heated
grace for which we’d all of us,
once, so eagerly sought him.
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