Ode to Prince by Ryan Boyland

1999 played on my radio the first time I had a girl

in my car past curfew. After a while, every time

When Doves Cry would play, it would stick

On, Maybe I’m just like my father, my father,

my father. In college, I played Kiss while with

a girl I shouldn’t have been, licked

the sweat from her belly, let the salt nourish

the tongue. I was listening to Darling Nikki

on a pair of busted up Beats in a CVS

in Cambridge when I learned he died.

I’m sure the heaven he went to had a stage,

a purple basketball court, a dancing mass of bodies

the color of gunpowder and dusk. For me, heaven is

Let’s Go Crazy playing over my car’s speakers

on a night drive, heart pounding against my ribcage.

Gravel pelting undercarriage. Driver’s window

down. Wind screaming. Tires humming. Racing

back from Lincoln on a Friday night when I told

my parents I was just going down the street. A curve

that never ends. Darkness swallowing my high beams.

A guitar dancing on the high E, notes

racing towards infinity. If

a song keeps skipping, I’ll never hear the final note.

Maybe he was taken so soon because

God likes the way he plays

and I can’t fault him for that. Once,

God birthed a Universe wide enough

to hold everything I’ve ever loved and gave me

the gift of skin the shade of her flesh,

and ain’t that a blessing? Turn a black light

on black bodies and they seem to glow. Ultraviolet.

Purple light so full of energy it burns the skin.