New York reminds me so much of you. Coming into town, I would always stare out the window of the cab, looking at the streets, loving them, knowing you were here, wondering what you were doing that moment. Then I would recall smell of lemons, that perfume you gave me last time I saw you, before you died.
I wish you were still here, because the new Patty Griffin album is beautiful, especially the song, “Top of the World.” Listening to it makes me miss you, and I can’t stop thinking about whether or not they get the latest music to heaven. Does it drift up to meet you? Do you hear it? Maybe you even get it before it comes out. Maybe God gives you a heads up, like when Patty was writing the song, and you heard it come out of her the first time.
Tori Amos has two more records out and they are amazing. She was your favorite I know, and she loved you. She covered “Rattlesnakes,” which is my favorite Lloyd Cole song, and it makes me cry hard, because your life wasn’t long enough to hear it, but I am just hanging onto the hope that Itunes are available up above, and the afterlife is rife with Ipods. What is your playlist?
You loved women more than most men or even women, and you were such a good uncle to your niece. You were forever concerned about her transition to womanhood, whether she would make it in the harsh world of today. You would have been excited because in DC last weekend there was a million women marching for pro-choice. The press said that it was just a few hundred thousand, but we are many millions, and even if we were not there, women are everywhere all the time, just like you are now, and we were all there. All the many women you loved, all around me. It was funny being surrounded by women and all the time I had you, this big, tall handsome man on my mind.
You had done wondrous things with all of their faces, their beauty was reflective of your beauty. Which was what you did here on earth. Like people make love, you made beauty, not just with the powder and rouge and lipsticks, but with your faith, your joy, your understanding. It wasn’t makeup, it was love, and that was clear.
Can you see me? I am beautiful, which I never thought was true, but you made me see it, and then it fell away, but now, I see it again, I cannot get away from it. Thank you for that. The women at the march were beautiful, because they were there, and they were all focused on one thing, the right to be themselves.
I got into it with a Mennonite, but you know, I am straight up thug and you can’t take me anywhere except Knuckletown. I said, “Step up, come on. Bring it!!!!! Ezekiel!!!!” He was making his wife and kids hold up blown up pictures of fetuses that had been torn up, all bloody. Does Kinko’s let them print up that shit? I know I should not get physical, but it was early in the morning, and I was ready to roll, and the counterprotesters made me mad. They are small and insignificant, but the pain is tiny yet consistent, like a mosquito bite, and if you scratch it, you will bleed. So I am a little bloody, but still, looking good, thanks to you, thanks to me, thanks to womanhood. It was the largest march on Washington in history, and I wore heels.
Late in the afternoon, I saw Air Force One in the sky, flying low, really ominously over the protesters, the biggest mosquito of all. I am not sure what he was trying to say, maybe to be a reminder that some bugs are never going to be zapped or slapped. There is no no pest strip sticky enough to catch that shit. Police cars swirled all over the ground, surrounding the crowd, lights and sirens on, full blast. Did you see any of that?
Are there lots of soldiers up in heaven? Are they cute? Is it fun? I hope so, because I know that their last few days here on earth weren’t. I was just missing you. I always do.