Depending on who you ask
Who will keep the furnace running?
Smoke climbing careful out the neck of the home
Just north of the railway pines
The peregrine keeps its family decorated in the tinsel of earth and trees
What are you, babe, if not gunfire and girlscout?
What am I if not pleased?
In dust & despair I will braid your hair
O towel and chair in the day.
With dinner before me I will take what's there
In time & in tomb I will stay put.
They've coal in the living room
No more need for all this yearning
The naked and the driven and hot
The house carved by the holy ones and warmed by the heathen zeroes
We clean up the mess and start again, unspeaking
(The sound of the willow whistle)
What are you, babe, with your hands slow and beholden?
Basil, sugar, beer and salt and wine
In dust & despair I will braid your hair
And when you lay before me, I will take what's there
In time & in tomb I will stay.