And I thought I’d have to grow old and gay

with Madonna alone! Mother

of masks, of reinvention, who likes to say:

“Just thinking about sex is sex” and whose lovers

Wilt in the shade of her gilded vanity

Until you came alone, well-versed

in Warhol and Rilke and the cold depravity

of life without dance, daring, fashion, who burst

Like some pop Pegasus, some demented diva,

The chastity belt that is America, every bit the Muse

She once was, singing “Vogue” and “You give me fevah,”

Still your own Medusa, affirming “Never lose –

Never compromise.” Yet I’m a guilty fan

Feeling every bit like I’m seeing another woman.

May 2011.

See my “Latest in Gaga” from the _G&LR_ (2010):

http://www.thefreelibrary.com/The+latest+in+Gaga.-a0232889565