She left last week, took her loaded vows
The door’s still open, I’m locked out of my house
I’m madly in love, but what about pity?
Could it be that she found it in this war-torn city?
I wrote to her asking, “Does it ever get better?”
I’m still waiting for her reply to my letter.
She’d write it if she had time to think
But her humour is dry, like the wine and the ink.
There’s a picture of me on her corner shelf
I’ve looked at it often and I don’t look like myself.
I’ve heard her stories, but she’s got to stop
Stacking up debts at her father’s shop.
He smiled at her once under the brim of his hat
Told her, very kindly, that the Earth is flat
Told her that one sin soon becomes ten…
I sincerely hope she never saw him again.
I’ve forgotten their faces, my memory’s a ditch
Was it she who told me to kill this switch?
I’d ask for her help in the gathering gloom,
But she walks through this dream like it’s her own room.
She’s been singing the blues with colours and tones
Like the wafer-thin bridges of brown collarbones
The kind that can snap with no trace of hurt
Much like old magic in December’s dirt.
I could write forever of her paintbox whims,
And the lakes that I drain so her light never dims.
You can hear her blues, but not a word that she’s said.
It’s all Divine Will and acrylic red.
That’s just as well. The keys are all wrong
On a quicksilver piano of stiff drinks and song.
So I’ll choose the night sky over open doors.
The brimmed hat is gone, and somewhere, she knows.
Comments