Only until this cigarette is ended,
A little moment at the end of all,
While on the floor the quiet ashes fall,
And in the firelight to a lance extended,
Bizarrely with the jazzing music blended,
The broken shadow dances on the wall,
I will permit my memory to recall
The vision of you, by all my dreams attended.
And then adieu,—farewell!—the dream is done.
Yours is a face of which I can forget
The color and the features, every one,
The words not ever, and the smiles not yet;
But in your day this moment is the sun
Upon a hill, after the sun has set.

That ring is wearing you like hands on a steering wheel,
but darling,
who drives at 10-and-2 these days?
Try steering with just one hand,
or with your legs,
or with mine.

Because I'm exhausted by the sick, sweet smell of the garden after rain.
The fruit's only ripe until it isn't,
until it's rotten.
We were only tending a garden until we were tending a grave.
And you say that the more it rains the more it rainbows,
so stop thinking of rainbows as rainbows but as
light that doesn't stay together,
that's better off apart.

And if I'm ruining the rain for you, then please ruin something for me.
Strike me hard enough to dislodge us both.
Let the thunder fill the emptiness
that's filling us both.
And if the flood aims to drown us, let's not hold our breath.

Because with your hands on the wheel, you're just a passenger these days.
Because each night we go to bed hungry, and all you want is more silverware.
Because even when relieved of the dust we've gathered,
we're still no more alive than an album on the shelf.