What Gene Wilder Told Me Once

I found Gene Wilder
Sitting in a chair.

[Or]

I found Gene Wilder
In a room with red curtains,

I accidentally sat on him,

I was asking
for
something
lost

a
piece
of my
childhood

I found
Gene Wilder
whispering
in my ear

Then,
standing back
upright,
hair wild
eyes full of prose,
direct
yelling about

“INCOMPETENCE IN YOUTHFULNESS!”

“Directions
made impossible
by the passing
of time.”

“numbers, theories, theorems…
things passed…
unanswered by ambitious,
beautiful minds…”

I asked Gene Wilder
what he wanted to say,
what there was left to leave
to this weary world

He said,
“The only lesson in life
worth remembering is that we
only get where we are because
we stand on giants.”

He said it in such a way that
it seemed as if those giants
weren’t trustworthy

And I sat,
looking at the red curtains
and I watched his hair
envelop him.

and I breathed him out.

And I wondered what part of me was Gene.