There's a cynic in the washroom

Dropping hints in the basin

While the mirror plays a 4-star matinee

Left her minder in the booth outside

Sucking whiskey off his child bride

As some waitress is dropping her tray


There's a fire in her eyes tonight

Entertaining a redress

But his hand slaps her pie-eyed reverie

Before snapping all the buttons on her dress

The bareback feigns indifference

A patron's spilling catcalls

And she's listening through concrete walls

For the protests of a single petty witness


There's a girl out there
Where a woman should be

Keeping still in filthy company

Of a boy well-dressed but
Dressed up like a man

In her porcelain cell, this immaterial girl

Thinks of a soft spring night when she was sure

'til the bare, bald light brought
Claws across her skin


Behind closed doors the mistress

Holds her own hand in a vice grip

Just waiting for the next rag doll and sloppy sip

She tells herself, “I've nothing to confess”

Marys crack like little misses

Night's end isn't gentle kisses

Just mending a tattered dress

These are not your ordinary stitches


She smelled of sleep
As the sheets were torn

Under this shining man in uniform

Closed her eyes and thought,
he must be asking me to dance

How do you tell the child that
Her lover's a fighter

Or worse, she thinks,
As the hostess retires

Tell a lover that she's
Gonna have to fight


Nine birds dance in the driveway

She counts them laying sideways

A metal cot, it touched her face
A thousand different ways

It was then she thought,
One golden shot,
And this I shall replace

With visions of a marching band

The roses will cut up my hand

And this look resting on my face

Will fall down over this
Broken promise land


These fighting words are craving
New mouths to feed

And as this pen is writing
My blue face will breathe

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