All I want to do tonight is cry
I wish you'd listen with all of your elephants
A silence is barnstorming my throat
With the sad hum of Africanized bees.
I have an explanation made of reedy puppets --
Expatriates of the jubilant musical --
But my skin has grown white without holiday --
Yes, tourist, I'm talking to you.
My chorus of clowns perched on stilts
Mocks your brow-beaten torment
So many whitewashed expressions compete
For the lionized lie of the flagpole.
From the height and the sigh of it all
The branches play a melancholy harp
Let's join in and finger the breeze.
If you can follow my needle you'll know:
I was forced through the eyelids of torrid lilacs
And battered with lovers' polyphonic elves
Their deceitful noses turned me wooden.
It seems that grieving makes the best of us
Sew puppeteers to our sleeves:
And that's why good architects are always trees.