Elda Gentile aka Elda Stiletto, 1949-2018

by Gerard Malanga

Elda,
Am I asking the impossible beyond your time and mine
had fate rolled our dice out differently?
Had the gods blessed us with eternal bliss,
had the seasons reversed themselves to satiate our wanderlust,
to find ourselves in a hotel splendide on Lake Genève
or a beach–front cottage out in the misty Hamptons,
a hide–away deep in Maine’s upper northern reaches?
There are no photographs of us that I recall
that show us as memories resisting memory
or where we sensed to be.
Our dream selves.
How did this all come not to be?
The timing’s off.
We came together once one late night after closing time at Max’s,
1969 —
I was house –sitting for Charles Rydell —
and then we slept in —
smothered in our sensuosities, c. this & c. that . . .
and then it’s 1992 suddenly,
the one time I can claim a date exactly.
No, I correct myself!
You reached out
and suddenly there we were in Woodstock
where you interviewed me
and God knows where that tearsheet’s been misplaced
among those archives sleeping.
And I’ve been lucky trying to remember for the both of us
and still our angels blessed
us nonetheless
where we picked up last in that deep dark confusing sleep,
too early yet to prophesy.