Still in Love with Lance Armstrong

You were the ultimate goyishe kid in Paris
with those crystal blue eyes the Greeks jumped
naked in. The dimpled face, the sandy hair,
the creamy skin—and a heart tested at two
and a half times normal human capacity
to beat fatigue, to beat anything. You were
the boy-next-door who stormed the palace,
but had no idea who fathered you.

No, you were created by Mom
who adored you, and you skipped
from woman to woman in a spin
that left you soon unmoored, adrift:
the risk of ex-jocks who one moment
dazzle us, and become only
question marks the next.  

Odes should have been written
for you, and shirts designed
to keep your aura alive (like
Lacoste), but instead you
ate crow, and lacked a longer mission,
the tour, the life-flowering of yourself:
it stopped just when the words ran out
not the pictures. Lance, buddy,
open your mouth. Say something
so leanly beautiful, so propelled
against the dullness of defeat
and the weary, life-sucking leak
of age that it will push you directly up
into the sky, where you will join
the constellations and the other stars
whose emblazoned faces cheat
fate and are known in a single
comet’s swirl of a thought.


Perry Brass
May 28, 07