That was then:
Iggy Pop
Recently
I saw him self-described
as an elderly man
of means
I remember him
as a ninth-grader
with a big dick
and matching soft eyes
in the boy’s locker room
helping a weeping classmate
untie a tough knot
in the chin strap
of his scuffed leather football helmet
And I remember him
in khakis and cardigan wool
reciting his poem
about hedgehogs
in AP English class
I remember him next
like me arrived early
waiting in the lobby of
the undergraduate library
for the doors to open:
just back from Chicago
his summer invested
in the blues -
he wore western boots and
his hair was long:
So what do you call yourself now –
I asked – a hippie?
Still kind, he
quietly untied the square knot
in my question:
I’m hip –
he said – but I’m not a hippie.
