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