[On what day you think Jesus was actually born he asks]

Diane Seuss

On what day do you think Jesus was actually born he asks,

and do you think Billy Idol is talented but dumb or smart

but talentless, I love the cold, he says, I love it to be as cold

as it can possibly be, I want snow as high as the rooftops,

which is why he swears he’ll never come home from the north,

never back over the bridge, not for holidays like the false birthday

of the so-called Lord, throw out my stuff, all of it he says, so

cold I can spit and it freezes, makes a chhh sound like Billy Idol

pronounces s when he’s really rocking, did you see him live he

asks, did you see the Clash, yes to the Clash, no to Billy, I spat

and it froze in November, he says, rare these days, never home, not

for funerals or to sleep in his old room where I used to find empty

quarts of vodka, needles, pipes, but he’s clean now, clean, gorgeous

word like snow like cold, if I were Jesus, he says, I’d make it colder

 

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