Oh how black the pavement is In all the neighborhoods there are left to live Glaring lapses there have passed The windows closed to the drafts and the vessels were snatched Our bodies jointed and julienned in the sun Clean shaven and pressed down to pleading pulp Inside out now the clotheslines strum dumbly on Strung up absences pinned up like warnings of On a tarpaulin in the weeds They lay me down slow and so easy And hum your hurting days are through Even as I'm begging still to follow