Because every age needs an icon,
because every age needs a shrine.
Because every age needs a sacrificial king-
and because the young girl desires the prince,
and young girls have always danced around the stone
and kissed it and touched it until it was warm
and come to life.
Because you were not like any of the men or boys
we had seen or known before,
because you were not like our fathers,
you were not like our brothers,
shorn and separate from us,
but because you were more like us, the girls,
the women;
because this time the prince was finally awake,
with all that emotion
wreathing your faces,
curling around eyes and lips and neck-
you deserved our adulation.
You were the lost twin – never seen before
but recognized on sight;
Because you were new
like our bodies were new
and we were all sap green and full of hope-
everything was possible.
The songs were white blossoms all around us,
intoxicating us with possibilities!
Because your music had all the energy
of falling in love, and passion never sounded
so exuberant, longing was never so exhilarated,
masculine energy never felt so direct or innocent-
the choruses soaring, the minor key
rounding out the doubt, regret, confusion-
all the emotions men weren’t supposed to feel;
the songs, ecstatic
white blossoms;
it was the high of divine energy
and the shock of the new-
because you were new
because we were new