We Are Hot Dogs

Twisting and turning
We are hot dogs
Twirling on top
Of gas station grills

Made from the skin
And bones of pig
We glisten softly
And simmer in heat

We roll side by side
Our shoulders touch
Use Ketchup and mustard
To cover us up

And I can’t recall a feeling better than this

Summer slowed down
To speed my pulse up
We wandered sidewalks
Moon light held us

We sat on benches
We sang our songs
We stayed up all night
Then we went home

And I can’t recall a feeling better than this

We stood on concrete
Strangers saw us
They said in our eyes
We looked in love

And I can’t recall a feeling better than this

Sweet and Sour
Rough and ripe
Flavors tasted
On summer nights

And I can’t recall a feeling better than this

I’ve got ten fingers
I have ten toes
Yours softly sweeping
My neck and my nose

Twisting and turning
We are hot dogs
Twirling on top
Of blankets too hot

And I can’t recall a feeling better than this

Things We Have in Common

Her father was an astronaut and all the other things
The little boys dreamed about
Staring at the ceiling, laying on their backs and bellies
Caught up in the season, playing on the front porch swinging
Baseballs in the back lots, talking words that don’t have meanings
Her father was an astronaut

Her father was a cowboy riding towards the big sun setting
Bullets in the bad guys Beans around the campfire singing
Tunes about the old trails, talking words that don’t have meanings
Her father was a cowboy

In my sleep my hair grows
It’s hard to keep these things we have in common anymore

Her father was a prostitute
Selling his own body to men across the business table
Out to make an offer, talking words that don’t have meaning
Her father was a prostitute

In the rainstorm windshield wipers
Steer the fates of the car drivers
I am putting all my faith in these doors keeping
All my secrets safe and warm

It’s not certain whether you are right or you are wrong
It’s not certain whether plane tickets will break my fall
But I’m hoping that sitting next to the telephone twisting
Cords will keep me until the time you call

Her father was a Casanova
Her father was a palindrome
Her father was a picture taker
Her father held the head of the woman that he loved in his own hands

Her blood is yours, her blood is mine
And we will burst inside these borders, clinging tight to these ideas
But it’s hard to keep these things we have in common anymore

On the Planet Earth

In a note pad, in my living room
There are words you wrote not long ago
And if you leave me, and we don’t exchange each other's things
I will keep them and pretend they were about me

In the closet, there are your clothes hanging there
In the cupboard the food is how you left it
In the freezer the frozen pizzas pine along with me
And so we wait for you to come home

In a factory in small Midwestern town
There are women waiting for you there
And they are sexy and they know more about comic books than me
And when you’re gone I worry that they’ve found you

They are over 6 billion people on the planet earth, I am one you are another
And every second that we spend together brings us closer to
Where we will end up

In the toy aisle of some department store
I will wait there expecting you to show
And if you don’t come, I will start a conversation with myself
And even when you’re gone you are well spoken

If you don’t come back to me this time
If you don’t come back to me now

The Wanderer

The curtains have been closed, I am cold still
When hunters blow their smoke into the hills
And the pretty girls pick pine cones, In the white fields
And I am wide eyed waiting for you

So Mother mind the your words
These are young ears built to feast on what it is they hear
Mother don’t be cruel
If you are looking, a good man will whip himself in front of you

Win or lose, He will be there for you
And he will call you by your first name
Win or lose, I cannot comfort you
Anymore than my touch can tell

The lungs that I could long for
Are heaving hearts full of
Empty books on wood shelves starving
And the mouths that speak the good word
I am not good for because I tasted the fruit when it was ripe

So I will wash my hands clean of these things
And I will lick my lips and you will look but you can’t touch
And you will go on stalwart fighting for your causes
And I will go on stalwart counting all my loses

I am just as good as the ones who
Stand in the street and beg for mercy
Unlock your cellar door and let loose the demons
You keep within the belly of your beast

Win or lose, He will be there for you
And he will call you by your first name
Win or lose, I cannot comfort you
Anymore than my touch can tell

The Patriotism of Reincarnation

I could be the flag
bragging red, white and blue
hanging overt and unnecessary
On a pole above the car dealership in your home town

I could be the airplane
Flying 10,000 feet above the ground
Skipping on the wind like children on the playground pavement
I could be the seat cushion you cling to when you crash

Reincarnation
Doesn’t seem half bad a plan, a plan

I could be the push pin
Stuck in the corkboard holding up a picture from your youth
I could be a bedspread
draped cautiously collecting dust in the guest room

Reincarnation
Doesn’t seem half bad a plan, a plan

So we speak our peace and wipe our noses
We dig the holes and carve the tombstones
Offering comfort in a hand on shoulder
Still no one knows now, where he will go

I could be the worm in the apple
I could be the axe that chopped the cherry tree
I could be the glass of water on your bed side table
I could be any person place or thing you make of me

Reincarnation
Doesn’t seem half bad a plan, a plan
Reincarnation
Make me anything you can

Sandboxes

We were young then
We balanced sidewalks
We were cool then and dripping wet
With our lack of common sense
Your mother measured how tall
Those marks on walls were worth their weight in gold

We were heavy
Tree branches couldn’t hold us
Teasing curfew we bought time
For the time being
We thought we knew the difference between
Swallowed whole and running reckless

And so he tasted
Your skin in sandboxes
And so he spread you flat on the ground
Like a blanket

And we walked the wrong ways and
Talked thick words
In thin places

I sat on his bedspread
He played his father’s James Taylor records
My head full of “this is the end of my life as I know it”
These words, this room, this man, these piano hands

Now our scattered
Correspondence
Will be keeping
me from clinging to you

we were young then
we were childish
carving peepholes
from our pupils

Ode to Optophobia

If I were a sailor would you love me?
If I were a banker would you care?
If I knew how to drive a bulldozer,
Would you let me drive you around town, (destroying all the landscapes?)

If yes let’s meet in the morning
Halloween is not far away
And I could be anything you wanted
The magic word is every word just say it

If I learned to juggle would you keep me?
Or take me to fancy parties in the spring
All the guests overstuffed with defrosted crab cakes
Would whisper “hush, hush, what a pretty little thing. (and I would be for you)

If yes, let’s meet in the morning
And race the cars before they go to work
Take a ride in my’95 Crown Victoria
Bring your walkman because my cassette player’s broke

If you peed your pants I’d still love you
If you wanted to be an astronaut you’d have my support
Like a jockstrap I would cling to your body
Lapping up the plastic pain if you ever got hurt

If no, I’ll try again tomorrow
Cause I only have eyes for you
My prescription isn’t quite twenty-twenty
But you’re the only thing that’s focused in my view

If you wasted you life on luck I would still love you.
If you got in a horse riding accident and I’d push your wheelchair
If you grew to be too old and scared to dream
I would whisper the wills of the things you once believed in (until you feel asleep)

If no, then I’ll wait until you’re ready
And feed the fish until you come back home
When obsessed with a man what is a girl to do?
Then dress up cardboards cutouts and pretend they’re you (you make a fine dance partner)

If yes, let’s meet in the morning
If no, I’ll see you soon