Polaroids

Please no more therapy Mother take care of me Piece me together with a Needle and thread Wrap me in eiderdown Lace from your wedding gown Fold me and lay me down On your bed Or liken me to a shoe Blackened and spit-shined through Kicking back home to you Smiling back home Singing back home to you Laughing back home to you Dragging back home to you I was so wary then The ugly American Thinner than oxygen Tough as a whore I said you can lie to me I own what's inside of me And nothing surprises me anymore But forests in Germany Kids in the Tuileries Broken-down fortresses In old Italy And claiming his victory Shrouded in mystery He went running away with me Back in our home New York Walking these streets forlorn We all in our uniforms Black and black Doing that slouch and jive The artist must survive We've got all we need we cried And we don't look back Thinking we had it made Poised for the hit parade Knee deep in accolades The conceptual pair But ever the malcontent He left without incident Vanished into thin air Now I am always amazed Words can fill up a page Pages fill up the days Between him and me But the vows that we never keep From bedrooms to business-speak Make me remember how cheap Words can be And the letters I wrote you of Were those of the desperate stuff Like begging for love in a suicide threat But I am too young to die Too old for a lullaby Too tired for life on the ledge But I had a dream last night Of lovers who walked the plank Out on the edge of time Amidst ridicule They laughed as they rocked and reeled Over the mining fields Coming to rest on this ship of fools But he just took polaroids Of her smile in the light Of the dawn of the menacing sky And before they went overboard She turned and held up a card And it said Valentine