11:07pm, December 8th, 1980

The king strawberry welcomed dark in

the dead of winter.

Chapman’s “mark” on Central Park

was the body’s last flame:

it burned hot in

hotel lobbys too.

72nd Street had never felt so alone,

not in a hundred years.

O Dreamer, naked in the stillness,

you lived as one through windowpanes and

upon rooftops.

I heard a moonlight sonata somewhere

in New York, too

and I thought of you.

Leary couldn’t get it together,

not in the vine-clad valleys born

before the Western sun, but

musicians will read your gospel

forever.

I’ll admit, I want you back Johnny.