The secret of Warhol's art? Social ineptitude,
love of uniformity, obsessive attention to detail,
all are classic symptoms, say those who --

The image of a soup tin repeating across
a canvas, a row of Elvises, guns drawn,
all are classic symptoms, say those who --
His social ineptitude, his linguistic mask
of monosyllables, difficulty recognizing friends,
all are classic symptoms, say those who --

His obsession with the uniformity of consumer
goods, his always buying green cotton boxers,
all are classic symptoms, say those who --

His firm conviction that the green ones felt
different than other colors, his antiquing sprees,
all are classic symptoms, say those who --

His antiques never taken out of the packaging,
his house a mausoleum, his mother living-in --
all are classic symptoms, say those who --

His mother installed in the basement apartment!
Painting he played the same record 90 times --
all are classic symptoms, say those who

paint the artist as a hero to the psychologically disabled,
who submitted a paper to the National Autistic Society
suggesting Warhol bore its milder, or "higher functioning"

form, Asperger syndrome, often associated with
prodigious talent. The theory has quickly gained
ground among experts, some of whom were already

working on the notion that Isaac Newton, Albert Einstein,
L. S. Lowry, and Peter Sellers were all autistic, though
in most of these cases there is less surviving proof

than in Warhol's. People, they say, will have seen
Dustin Hoffman's portrayal of an autistic man
in the film "Rain Man." He refuses to wear his brother's

underpants because, because they are not, because
they are not bought, because they are not bought from
Kmart! All are classic symptoms, say those who --