By Misti Velvet Rainwater
Date: 7 May 1998

closet

tonight is a dead night
  with you across
   the Atlantic
and me here
in this piss ant town
  where at seventeen
we fell
in love
   I think I'll go to town
       and buy a Coke

when my heart is a mad canary
       inside my chest
 beating itself to death
    against my ribcage
      the easy solution,
        the Band-Aid,
  is a trip to the cinema

so many remedies to get me through
  the absence of you has
   made a bad woman
    out of me
 I've been broken
    by men
 who reminded me of you
  I've denounced God in
     sorry company
 and smoked endless cigarettes

you should receive it tomorrow
  the letter I sent
I'll be home
  when you call
you'll talk and I'll laugh,
    as always
neglecting to tell you
  all that I've thought of
       and felt
since we last talked weeks ago
  you'll ask about the weather
       and be jealous
because I'm warm
   and you're bitterly cold

it all stays with me
  the silliness
  the meanness
 the gaudy grandeur
of our enduring love
 I wish I still had
 the car I drove
when we were seventeen
  that ugly two-tone
Ford Granada piece of crap
  -I miss that car.

you arrange things
 put things together
I send the letters
 and the pictures
and you put it all to music
I'm your sweet, shy geisha
  I tremble in the wings
you give me my cue

I come flying to you,
  in a dream
it's spring someplace
  and we're both warm
 together in the flesh
  a beautiful mess
we kiss and talk
  and share the sun