In broad daylight and a familiar street

The kind where gossips dawdle and nose-to-tail dogs meet

Some bastard with no face lurched out from behind a tree

And tried to kill me

There was toothflash, black leather, the smile of a knife

And I saw the terrified, puffed-out bird of my life

Fly from my hand, so for a long second I knew I was dead

Even though I was still fighting him off

Even though I'd just said, No, no, and then in a flurried muddle

Go on, go on, meaning all I most wanted to do in the world

Had hardly begun before my heart started working again

And I stood there alone, dribbling a little thin blood from one finger

Onto a ringing paving stone

I thought that was it, but then night fell

And the knife became an adder's tongue

Bitterly licking me, slicing easily

Stripping the brain from my open head

Until all I'd begun, half-finished or done

Or wished to be true was gone, all except you

But you were asleep and made no sound

When I left your side without a word

And slipped downstairs to my room underground

A grown-up, like a frightened child

The fire is out at the heart of the world

All tame creatures have grown up wild

The lives I trusted, even my own

Collapse, break off, or don't belong

I leant my head on the windowpane

And the hard-edged garden lit with rain

Shimmering a million knives

The wind caressed them with its painful hand

The fire is out at the heart of the world

All tame creatures have grown up wild

All except you, your life like a cloud

I am lost in now and shall never be found