a poem inspired by elynross' story, Hope Chest

feedback, as always, to devo

Nothing changes, my beamish boy,
but hats and shoe styles.

God bless the rubber-soled shoe!
Or don't you like my sweet wicked charm?

Does it offend your stoic grace?  Liar!
I know you for the sensualist you are.

We both know we are more 
than the games we play and the masks we wear:

Duncan the Boyscout, 
and me, Methos, the Old Man.

Don't you like my masks?  Cynical, 
caustic, mysterious, proud?

You need to be scandalized.  Believe me 
if I'd stayed your simple beer-drinking friend 

You'd have ditched me long ago.
Maybe not ditched but drifted off,

Like Cullen or Fitz, your good buddies,
oh, yeah -- How long since you'd seen either of them?

You need my rumors.  My sharp edges, my disdain.
Even those.  You need to take them to yourself, 

My beautiful boy, and turn them, 
ever so elegantly,

In the furnace of that heart of yours,
in your passion and your pain,

Into Gospel:

Grant me release as I would give you 
yours.  Let us curse and bless each other
in the dark and in the light.  And let the people say

Amen.

End