Your nerves firing, as they shot off like bottle-rockets you
Saw every inch flashing before you
Do deities fall like this? Their synapses
Shaking, memories collapsing onto dusty
Drug-ridden floors?
You saw this:

I.
We meeting, we shared of our blood
Eyes twitching across a den, litters like pups--
Your veins bright, ecstatic
Like sinners now converted.
A narcotic priest crying among us
"Rise up, ye molecules, ye atoms of this man's soul!"
When we crossed, what did you think?
That every meeting, every next tomorrow
Would connect us first and foremost through our
Passions, our cells.
Second through love.

II.
The day you were realized
Like Buddha, you smiled, saying "No, I am aware,"
My head in your lap, my eyes dim against pale skin
The day, the morning, the awakening
Preaching to me as alien visitors flowed through you
That we are one, that we are the loved.
We were never the loved.
Turning to your companions, laughing
"There is no God but our powders, our vials, our needles
And I am their prophet"
The night, the evening we embraced
Sudden awareness of our own beautiful failures.

III
You, your youth, your longing for something
Besides finger pricks and lunchtime lip-locks
Quivering, shattering our blades on the floor
Lead us, I prayed, lead us out of the desert
And you, touching my forehead in this blessing
Never knew the cold.
Never knew the rain.
We buried you in sand, swore that you still spoke to us
This den still abides, waiting for you
The smoke, rising over our heads, was never so clear
As that day when you (beaming beatifically)
Made yourself infallible
And failed.