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

And 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 don't look back

And 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