Tribute

Here's to the poem I'll never read
aloud to all my friends and make
unconqurable memories of.
Here's to the poet who wrote the poem,
who'll have to settle for someone
less manicly empassioned by his work,
someone less fit to be his biggest fan.
Here's to the religion I won't convert to
after the conversation with the stranger
I'll never meet, who'd have asked me
the most important question I'd ever heard,
and given me a hint that would have
had me searching for the rest of my long,
wandering, stark, and diaphanous life.
Here's to the strange pleasure I might
have discovered in the hands of a man
and his black box full of pills I'd have kept
chasing, and chasing with money from
the freshly-cashed checks that kept me
screwed down tight to a job I hated.
Here's to however many women who would
have said yes if I'd ever asked.
Here's to the thousands of towns
I'll never move to and rent
a small house in close to downtown
where the owner of the coffeehouse I love
most knows me like a brother and has
effervescent debates with me about it all
over hot tea she won't let me pay for.
Here's to all of my son's and daughter's
whose souls will stay in the ether.
Here's to every person who does
any one of these things in my place
and to each and every thing they
might have done but left it to me.