Mother take care of me
Piece me together with a
Needle and thread
 Wrap me in eiderdown
Lace from your wedding gown
Fold me and lay me down
 On your bed
 Or liken me to a shoe
Blackened and spit-shined through
 Kicking back home to you
Smiling back home
Singing back home to you
 Laughing back home to you
 Dragging back home to you

I was so wary then
The ugly American
Thinner than oxygen
 Tough as a whore
 I said you can lie to me
I own what's inside of me
And nothing surprises me anymore
 But forests in Germany
Kids in the Tuileries
Broken-down fortresses
 In old Italy
And claiming his victory
Shrouded in mystery
He went running away with me

Back in our home New York
 Walking these streets forlorn
 We all in our uniforms
 Black and black
Doing that slouch and jive
 The artist must survive
We've got all we need we cried
And we don't look back
Thinking we had it made
Poised for the hit parade
Knee deep in accolades
The conceptual pair
 But ever the malcontent
 He left without incident
Vanished into thin air

Now I am always amazed
Words can fill up a page
Pages fill up the days
Between him and me
 But the vows that we never keep
>From bedrooms to business-speak
 Make me remember how cheap
Words can be
And the letters I wrote you of
 Were those of the desperate stuff
 Like begging for love in a suicide threat
But I am too young to die
Too old for a lullaby
Too tired for life on the ledge

 But I had a dream last night
 Of lovers who walked the plank
 Out on the edge of time
Amidst ridicule
They laughed as they rocked and reeled
 Over the mining fields
Coming to rest on this ship of fools
But he just took polaroids
 Of her smile in the light
 Of the dawn of the menacing sky
 And before they went overbaord
She turned and held up a card
And it said Valentine