Dancing Around the Subject

[Cerise]

I've made minor adjustments to the rhythm, and hopefully the line ends are cleaner then they were before. I keep thinking of this as a Jazz song, but I don't know any jazz and the only tune I can semi-fit this to is a Leonard Cohen one (definitely not jazz!). Oh well. Confusion and Art go together.

 

 

Dancing Around the Subject

 

I heard from you once that year on the phone,

about how you were spending thanksgiving alone

and that it’d be splendid to see me again,

just like you were talking to one of your friends.

Said I’d stay at your place, share half your bed.

“Just like brother and sister,” you said.

And I hadn’t one red cent to my name,

but I came.

 

You met me all breathless outside of Penn station,

Eager to show me your newest creation,

the studio waiting for us to arrive,

you asked if I’d rather go walking or drive.

“It gets pretty cold in the evening,’ you said

and tilted the knitted grey hat on your head.

Still, I guess you can’t stand to be out in the cold,

So, we drove.

 

The rooms were painted bold colours of blue

with echoes of cubist motifs coming through.

As I crouched in the corner of your world on my knees,

you ordered our dinner in quick Cantonese.

We ate crispy noodles in small paper boxes

and dishes of rice with names I’ve forgotten,

with chopsticks, so it would be more real.

Was it real?

 

You showed me your pictures of Paris in spring.

I remember the smoke from your pipe, lingering

in the air like a ghost, as we drained the bottle

of cheap red wine I had brought on the shuttle.

You asked of a boyfriend, I said I had none.

You said, “That’s the way it should really be done.

You won’t have the heartache that others go through.”

But I do.

 

I hung on every word of our old song and dance

in hopes that this time you might give me a chance

to show what you’ve been passing up all along

for those cold city girls who keep doing you wrong.

But the bed was as wide as you said on the phone,

so much that I’d rather be sleeping alone,

so I wouldn’t disturb the air when you breathe

and I’d leave.

 

 

The slant of the sunlight struck in through the window,

too soon and too late for the people within, though

I guess that more time wouldn’t make any difference.

It took fifteen years of annoying persistence

to get to this cool blue studio bed

with a body so cold it just might be dead.

I carried you way past my limit and so,

I let go.

 

I got up at nine o’clock on the hour

when you shivered your way to the bed from the shower,

and asked when I had to depart for Cordée.

I said that I had better leave right away.

Your hand lifted lightly to cradle my chin

and my lips pressed together to keep my breath in.

“We should do this again around Christmastime.”

And I,

like a fool,

said “Fine.”