For You

For you I would

Paint red, faded fall sky

and tie early morning rainbow

around your brazen young neck,

choking you into sensibility.

For you I would

pull angels down from heaven

and threaten them with

clipped wings

if they did not reveal their secrets.

For you I would

build a fence around the moon

or sentence the sun to

the electric chair.

For you I would

fall in a heap to the ground

doing penance for just being born,

watching passively as

young children stone away my life.

For you I would be

a lost Russian Jew

bifocaled, bearded, bored

selling antique lampshades

to American intellectuals

along Rodeo Drive.

For you I would be

a sleepy eyed prophet

eating honey and locust

in some new age eatery

on the lower east side.

For you I would be

an intoxicated terrorist

making deals in blood and butter

aboard an empty airliner

destined for the ocean floor.

For you I would be

a victim of apartheid

black with anger

spitting out quarters

at passing armored cars.

For you I would

do anything, even

copy a Leonard Cohen poem.

I would be anything, even

a fallible god.