May I Call You Beatrice

Just a little thought in the head of the one
With the sunburnt cheeks and the eyes to the ground
Making earwaxed tongue-tied gutter sounds
Thinking of the lost rib, dialing the indelible
Thinking the unthinkable-no one’s home
And the eyes say I don’t believe we’ve met
I don’t believe you’ve had the privilege
I don’t believe we’ve met
When the wind blows cold
And the eyes of the child grow old
When the erratic conga rises and falls
Above the faithful metronome
You can take me back to the gravestone
See her strain from the weight of the globe
Spinning around his assumptions-barefoot and tight-lipped
He in his favourite chair blowing his world around
First she’s Beatrice, then she’s a pumpkin
Then she’s a faded leaf in a book on his pantry shelf
The head sees the hand play with the ring in the pocket
And the head knows the hand knows the ring is as round
As the tear-soaked shoulder in a room in another town
The ring is getting heavy and so is the crown
Which she drags to the chair feebly to keep the swelling down
When the bird in the bush is worth two in the hand
And the empty cage holds the empty man
The bird keeps flying from the Orgoglian rising
And the phone keeps ringing and the phone keeps ringing
And the ring keeps slipping and the phone
And the phone keeps on ringing
And he’s thinking about the one who got away