Broken Crow

It's okay, spread the peanut butter thick
You're back home. sleep 'til noon
And listen to the shape shifters
In the volvo on your way to borrow
Foreign movies from the library
Did they teach you french in new york?
Did you learn to shave your face close
With dial soap and a steak knife?
How to slickly wipe a sweaty palm
On your pants thigh
Before shaking hands firm
With the shadiest show promoters?
I know it's hard for a single person
To fold queen size bed sheets
You left your reds hat
In the back seat of mom's volvo
I know it's hard for a single person
To fold queen size bed sheets
You left your reds hat
In the back seat of the volvo
She wanted to have it cast in bronze
To be put on display next to your baby shoes
And first buck on the t.v. in the den
But i knew you'd be back
To eat a bowl of peanut butter bumpers
To jerk off to the lingerie ads
In the j.c. penny catalogue
I knew you'd be back
I knew you'd come back
To go back to school
Or get a job at the downtown library
The health food store
Painting apartments for ray ritchie
Or to work at the cigar kiosk
At kenwood mall
It's cool
Just make sure
You get out of here by december
Go to california. go to hawaii
Cincinnati sucks in the winter
You know that like the bump
On the back of your neck
It sucks the leaves from the trees
And by the time the snow is melting
They always find four or five
Bodies hanging by belts
From the train trestles
Or in empty parking lots
Slit wrists, turning what's left
Of the snow into cherry slushy
I know
All beautiful places
Are prone to natural disaster
But being swallowed
By the earth in manilla
Beats a slow death
In the midwest
Last night i practiced holding my breath
My record is two minutes thirteen seconds
But that was in the swimming pool last summer
It's easier in water
Just do the dead-man's-float
Let your limbs drift
Don't count in your head
Ignore your pumping blood
Focus on the quiet