Stubborn boy
Let loose the shackles of your smile
This world is far too holy for you to
Hide that half halo of your grin

The sound that comes in the crumbling
Of your childhood is the same one
That speaks in the secret wanderings
Of your soul
So listen close

When we walked around
The old bronze heart of this city
I wish you could hear
The rising pitch tuning
Of your veins as it readies
You to perform inside the
Same arena as a thousand
Broken down Cleopatras
Playing with snakes

Stubborn boy
Succumb to the silver smile
This city speaks in
A language I will never know
I am a scholar
That studies only the whispered
Tongues of crescent streetlamps
But you
You can learn all the languages
That have ever crashed into the moon

Close that book you have buried you eyes in
And in this city plant
The waiting bud of your billowing heart
So it can blossom like flames of windswept cherry trees
While there are still days left in spring

Stubborn boy
They taught you how to sing
And you memorized the melodies
Of such foreign stars
Open the cannon of your throat
This world is a two bit theater
That buries bodies
In the same seats they were born

But you
Son of a thousand
Secret subway duets
Will one day find yourself
Sitting next to the soul of this city

And she
She will ask you to sing for her
And you
You will learn why the tides chase the moon