For Jerry

Disarming us, you offered us your best

terrific friend we could call on the phone.

We ate him up, then asked you for the rest,

but you wrote Holden Caulfield all alone.

You hunkered in your Glass menagerie.

Our screams for help would never reach you then,

but how could you twist tourniquets for me

as blood gushed from your heart as from your pen?

I made your book a bandage for my head.

Our hearts were weak. Our arteries were sliced.

We had no choice; we lapped from where you bled

as if we drank the healing blood of Christ.

The phonies still don’t understand the fuss;

it’s naughty for a teenager to cuss.