I knew Jerry,
the man who went hunting Ayhuasca,
skeletal in a midnight field of husks,
or part of that scene, seen
later through the lens of Patricia Faure
at a Ferus opening so long before
my birth.

Jerry was a carpenter like Jesus.
I used to listen to his bones creak
as he built shelves.
I helped him carry the mahogany slabs
to his converted van.

Jerry, the spirit of Venice
before it became so overrun
with money and houses.

I grew up in Indiana, Jerry,
but you took time with my poems.
Really helped that one about the sea
serenading us to sleep.

Jerry, are you still alive out there
in the big, cavernous, sprawling, lonely West?

(I guess there was an intoxicating spirit
that started to work its way into my blood, under my skin,
like a draft or whiskey buzz.
I miss it badly.)

I’m back home now, snowed in,
and just wondering
if you’re alive or dead,
you broken bulb in a sea of drunken stars,
reaching shadow in an alley of towering palms.