My money melts like sugar
in the shower when I don’t sing
Like a broken mockingbird
that’s put in pawn
And traded in for diamond jewelry
The shines but only briefly
in the golden heart of fall
Where the afternoons wain quickly
and your breath
Floats in the final beams of evening
But I don’t need dollars, pounds, or pesos
To know I am rich
I’ve got people
who allow themselves to love me
And are insane enough to be loved
It’s funny to think
how much time we quietly spend apart
You don’t need to be a witness
to have withness
And I’m with you now, that’s certain
Civilize me
from the wilderness of constant mercy
Guarding a nursery of light
That drifts inside me
like a caravan of floating candles
Trying not to capsize in the night
Listen close to the dark
and write down what it says
Like it’s words are your own,
And dig a hole inside yourself
And bury them there
Thanksgiving Day is every day
I write a song like this
When I get down on all four paws
and drag myself
by my own jaws toward a feeling
And I wise woman once told me
no one has a single voice
You’re a chorus harmonizing
Or opposing voices rising
Or a string of strangers
waiting for their turn to speak
So every day just ask yourself
who would you rather be
A conductor or a cop
or a night watchmen
slowly strolling an asylum
Civilize me
from the wilderness of constant mercy
Cut like a kite string in a storm
That’s drifting through me
like a caravan of floating candles
Huddled in clusters to keep warm
At the end of the hunt
when you cut what you grow
will you have what you want?
And feast when fear is fleeced
from the sheets of a ghost
When you open your eyes
to the sound of the dawn
Peel a dream off your brain
The film that takes
the shape of the surface you dry it on
Like a Thankgiving prayer
you can taste in the air