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Teen Idol, Found O.D.’d

You were a marvelous infant,

a golden Aussie egg,

 

your falsetto destined to saturate

fern bars worldwide. You grew

 

to hear yourself pour out doors

on Dodge City Drive, and your reverb

 

washed over the mermaids in Santa

Maria dei Miracoli. You said yes

 

to everything, a porous stone

in Eden, and poppies filled the sky

 

until it rained fields you cooked white

in a spoon over Zippo light.

 

Andy Gibb, you’re gone

from the radiowaves. You surfed

 

out of your skin and got caught

with Callisto (Zeus’s lover-turned-bear)

 

in the constellations: remote

echoes of earth that lack

 

the click of ursine claws,

Farrah Fawcett hair,

 

K-Tel’s soundtrack of “The ’70s,”

the halo of common air.