Remembrances: Portrait of Dorian, Gray

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That was then:

This is now:

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.