Today, 05:22 AM
Drinking Song
Moon a hole of light
—Mitski
Elke doesn’t like much, but she's crazy
about blue.
She used to put a little heart
on every text, a robin’s egg
reminder of the smile I knew
she hated to be seen. Later,
I changed my own heart so it matched.
The kids still ask.
We’d stay up passing songs somebody else wrote
about people who were loved
in ways you couldn't name
without a grand piano. There's a blanket of a road
in Germany
that hugs the painted hills so tight,
you'd swear the whole damn world was on
the spectrum.
Elke named her dog
after a children's story
where the wicked spirits vanish, scattered
to the winds by faithful hounds. Her mouth
stretched wide as flesh split open
by an axe or razor blade
is red as anything you like
waiting to be fed.
In the winter mountains, Elke
doesn't speak, it's quiet
and it's cold, no matter how many shots
whistle past the moon’s high cheekbones
here in California, in the place where we were
finally to meet, the widest eye
that ever watched you hanging
open for the night.
Moon a hole of light
—Mitski
Elke doesn’t like much, but she's crazy
about blue.
She used to put a little heart
on every text, a robin’s egg
reminder of the smile I knew
she hated to be seen. Later,
I changed my own heart so it matched.
The kids still ask.
We’d stay up passing songs somebody else wrote
about people who were loved
in ways you couldn't name
without a grand piano. There's a blanket of a road
in Germany
that hugs the painted hills so tight,
you'd swear the whole damn world was on
the spectrum.
Elke named her dog
after a children's story
where the wicked spirits vanish, scattered
to the winds by faithful hounds. Her mouth
stretched wide as flesh split open
by an axe or razor blade
is red as anything you like
waiting to be fed.
In the winter mountains, Elke
doesn't speak, it's quiet
and it's cold, no matter how many shots
whistle past the moon’s high cheekbones
here in California, in the place where we were
finally to meet, the widest eye
that ever watched you hanging
open for the night.