After he read my book "A Fine Romance" in 2009, David Shapiro — my friend since my freshman year at Columbia –wrote me one of the greatest letters I have ever received, ending with this off-the-cuff poem:
You’re the top
you’re the TS Eliot
you’re the mop
making clean the Shelley bit
You're the top
you’re the cream of Pop's crop
you're Warhol
despite the whore and the false goal
You're the top
you're where Jew and Jazz meet
you're the sweet
that makes the off-rhyme well met
You're the top
you remember your mom
you're dutiful and productive
as the jazzy beat of the tom tom
You're a memory device
you're falling on no thin ice
you're now like me pretty nice
when the jazz joins the blue night twice
Since I reached my circumcision and began to like sexual curls
And John Ashbery decried things Schuberty
I tell my son not to date too many girls
oh no, it's the wrong smile it's the wrong face
You're the top
You’re the bottom's eaglet
you're the top
you're eeyore eats piglet
you’re the top
you're the boat for Noah
you’re the top
You lunch at Goa-goa
you're the top
you’re Columbia and Cambridge
you’re the top
You're the Jewish language (lanvidge)
You're the top
you’re the martini bullet
you’re the top
you go on foot to shul (*Sit!)
you’re the top
of feminine endings
you're the top
where jazz and jew blended
you’re the top
you're as yizkor sadness
you’re the top
you don't know from badness
but baby if I'm not Jewish
who is doing the stew fish'
but baby if I'm not jazz
then who's the spaz
But baby if I'm not Jewish
its close enough for twoish
and baby if I'm not gefilte
you’re the Hilton
etc etc.