Sing a song of high wires, thrumming with electric glee, of mangled birds falling from yellow skies, of great trees bending in the night, streetlamps punching through their branches like mad orange eyes-
Sing a song of shoes, scattered on the berm, sing a song after rain as you watch the drowning worms squirm up from the earth, sing a song of journeys undone by lovesongs in the radio noise, sing a song of pale white girls, sing a song of beautiful boys.
Sing a song of toys on fire and laughter in the night, sing a song followed by rage, gunshots and arcs of light, sing a song of madmen running, their calves wrapped in bags, sing a song of policemen sleeping after feeding on their wives antifreezed hams.
Sing a song of strangers standing shadowed at your late night door, sing a song of families dead in the ballroom of their huge cold house, sing a song of suicides photographed in a lovely Sunday blouse.
Sing a song of cold and wind, sing a song of light. Sing a song of empty eyes, of a shallow and toothless night.
Sing a song about a journey that started in your sleep, about how you woke to this strange new life and softly had to weep.
Sing a song of blazing kindness, sing a song of mindless hate-sing a song with these jagged shards, make your music as it grows late.
Sing these songs before your sleeping, sing them in quiet places.
Sing these songs to remember something, to fill the empty spaces-
