To Erich Russek



We drove out beyond the stars
and kissed beneath the dinosaurs,
swearing our eternal love
by surf guitars in topless bars
More like our parents than ourselves,
or the beautiful losers in someone else's book,
sometimes making a wish is like blowing out a candle.
Like the elephants looped around our spread for luck
I will never forget the wide fat lips of your elegant smile.
or the way you spun me in your telepathic hands.
Our hearts became the medium of our art,
our words the scrying instruments of our profession,
our fingers at last tendering other tokens.
I sent a message on a feather:
I am learning how to dance again
because at some point I forgot.