Parts Of Speech

They sit on steps against the wind

The colors changing growing thin

In lights and lye and lost illusions

Watch these two discussing

What to make of

Unborn children who may take or not take

Let us not break

Their cups are cold their hands are black

They sit at angles but

Distraction will not find them it will find them

In a white room

Where it’s all just touching shells

It’s touching shells

But It’s just nothing

It’s just nothing

He would never know

If she had never told

Him that she’d like to be a kind of mother

Now he’s on his own

A drift of sallow bone

And nothing there to lift him from the shudder

Your first love teaches you the parts of speech

All the words that you never thought that you could reach

The shop and the bulletproof Chinese

The yellow billboard yellow frieze

Of last year’s summer flicks

And soon the bus of nations hits

It’s blinking in the breeze

Of afternoons and afternoons

Of yawning and he’s longing

And though he’s certain that the shudder’s tied to fall

His throat is tight can’t quite recall

It’s in the books or in the wall

That scene of children standing tall?

He clears his throat

He clears it

He’s got a place in some small town

Far from the garden and the gown

She wears for someone else

While someone else

Will hold her hand

In some cold off-white room

But he’s okay

And you’re okay

And we’re okay

We break the fall

But he’s okay

And you’re okay

And we’re okay

It’s nothing it all