I.
Fill my belly with the arsenic and old lace.
Let me carry you down the lane
To the field where the flowers fled
After the warm spring rain.
I'll put my head against the old rocks
And whisper an old song to you
Lay we still all through this night
And awaken fresh with golden dew.
Tops and toys spin round marbles in dirt -
In circles drawn with brittle sticks
Against the meridian we tried to find But what is left to build with crumbled bricks?
Find me - I beg you - tomorrow's morning
Before you've boarded that creeping train
And read me sweet words from magazines
That soak down deep in sleeping veins.
II.
Raise high the tumblers until we tumble down
From our waterbeds of barley and of rye.
Those glass keys shall unlock the world
And tumble it smooth as silken skin Of the arms and elbows that touch the table.
Raise the cherry blossom to my lips -
That they may find the sunken gold Beneath the waves and lace that try to hide
My never ending want of you.
III.
All of the old ways are gone now
Buried six feet down
In an old apple crate and wrapped in muslin
With the dead dog I put there last year.
Don't cry, not now nor ever again
Open your nostrils thick
And breathe in the smell of the dirt Held by the chicken scratch that took root.
Burn the old clothes now
And bed sheets soaked in sweat and vacancy
And send the plague beyond
Near where we both know I belong.
Near enough still is want
Just beyond thickets of need
And let the rain water the crops
That in time will be cut and dried.
Drive on in that phaeton
Let it be pulled by the geldings
Who wrap us in the twine that captures
Everything we wish would fall away.