For Gordon, as ordered

1.

A jealous spirit

Stole your wife,

Left a black hole in your heart.

More punishment was needed

So he sent the Crab.

He wanted your vision.

He took an eye.

Still hungry

He took a breast.

Greedy for more

Now he’s taken your right leg.

Doped up

You told me

The surgeon replaced it

With my mother’s leg,

Amputated 50 years ago.

And you ordered me to write this poem

In the plane.

2.

At 36,000 feet

The clouds are wearing saffron robes

To celebrate sunset.

I am flying to Panama.

Beauty before and behind me

Above and below me

3.

Almost everything can be taken away.

A man can be torn to pieces,

Disassembled and scattered like a puzzle.

He can be deconstructed and left with only his breath

And his pain

And his goodness going out

Like ripples into the world.

4.

So much taken and still you are giving.

So much taken and still you are whole.

5.

Here is a pain-killer

Made out of pain.

Here is the poem you ordered.

I’ve included penguins with sunglasses

And nuns with mysterious suitcases

So you’ll feel at home in it.

I’ve thrown in Brooklyn Heights and Playa Mimosa

And the 40 years of our crazy friendship,

With apologies for taking more than I ever gave back.

Here’s Naomi opening like a flower.

Here’s my manuscript waiting for your blue pencil.

Here we are on the Angry Arts flatbed truck,

Declaiming against the Vietnam war.

And here is Dubjinski Barefoot singing and eating baby food

And here is Joyo sending the dictatorship packing.

6.

It’s all here, my brother

Jokes to remind us that we are miniatures

That nothing makes sense

Other than loving as best we can

An offering of light on the altar of darkness.

                                       -- New York – Panama City, May 4, 2005