Once, in my youth,
I won the Kentucky Derby.
The man who rode me now dead, I'm left
with an indifference to all things
but hay for the horses.

My heart is too big
to hold god,
angels maybe,
dark-skinned,
with ragged clothes,
but not god.

Alone in His majesty,
it would be a waste of space,
and we should take care
to make of his gifts more than that.

Where are we to go
on Sundays
from now on, you ask?
Well, you could come to my house,
and I to yours. Or, if that won't do,

we'll build a house from the ground;
and it will be just a house, a house
without memory, without beatings
and cold stares.  Flowers
in all the windows, growing up,
blessed with restlessness.

At night, the house
in darkness,
the sleepers
restless, at the mercy
of their dreams,
or no dreams at all,
sleeplessly wandering the halls
like Father Christmas;
a sip of whisky's better
than cookies and milk,
still, it won't work,
problem is, under the tree,
there's a present
with your name on it.

When Marilyn said
to Norma Jean:
"You have to go
out of your way

to save me",
she spoke
from a place beyond
all those years.

As cars rolled by,
the shut window's
distant mirror-eye,
they saw themselves,

in flashes, move about,
like faces
of sorrow and joy
changing places.

And the motel-sign said: vacant.

I'd like to come along
to your mother's house
on the night of her death;

it hasn't happened yet,
but when it does,
we both know,

you'll need someone.