Martin was from Marshalltown
in Iowa,

onetime J. C. Penney clerk,
former fundamentalist.

His smile, incapable of guile
underneath his dorky mustache,

was kinder than the store’s
automatic sliding doors

gliding open into air-
conditioned budget opulence,

sweltered August,
midwestern afternoons.

When we met at seminary,
Martin’s mind became

my personal Pygmalion.
You’ve never heard of Henry Rollins?

You’ve never seen Eraserhead?
I spun some vinyl — Hendrix

axe theatrics, Miles Davis’
modal jazz, Madama Butterfly.

Dragged him to a film series,
Akira Kurosawa’s Rashomon,

The Seven Samurai.
At my church in Marshalltown

he shouted over “London Calling”
We burned books like yours,

smashed records with a hammer.
Martin wasn’t burning up 

my bookshelves. My records
started going home with him.

Transformation came
the way a tickle in your throat

foretells a coming cold.
In a class on Kierkegaard

Martin raised his hand,
smiled his smile, asked

a question, brought the lecture
to a halt. A seminary class called

The Theology of Kierkegaard —
isn’t that an oxymoron?

Our professor, flipping pages
frantically in Fear and Trembling,

gaped, stared out a window,
said, Huh, yeah. I guess it is.

End of our first year. Martin
took me on New Jersey Transit,

midnight to Manhattan, subway
to East Village, a club called 8BC.

He smiled, standing on the sidewalk.
That guy there is in the band tonight,

They Might Be Giants.
I’d like to introduce you.