It's okay, spread the peanut butter thick

You're back home. sleep 'til noon

And listen to the shape shifters

In the volvo on your way to borrow

Foreign movies from the library

Did they teach you french in new york?

Did you learn to shave your face close

With dial soap and a steak knife?

How to slickly wipe a sweaty palm

On your pants thigh

Before shaking hands firm

With the shadiest show promoters?

I know it's hard for a single person

To fold queen size bed sheets

You left your reds hat

In the back seat of mom's volvo

I know it's hard for a single person

To fold queen size bed sheets

You left your reds hat

In the back seat of the volvo

She wanted to have it cast in bronze

To be put on display next to your baby shoes

And first buck on the t.v. in the den

But i knew you'd be back

To eat a bowl of peanut butter bumpers

To jerk off to the lingerie ads

In the j.c. penny catalogue

I knew you'd be back

I knew you'd come back

To go back to school

Or get a job at the downtown library

The health food store

Painting apartments for ray ritchie

Or to work at the cigar kiosk

At kenwood mall

It's cool

Just make sure

You get out of here by december

Go to california. go to hawaii

Cincinnati sucks in the winter

You know that like the bump

On the back of your neck

It sucks the leaves from the trees

And by the time the snow is melting

They always find four or five

Bodies hanging by belts

From the train trestles

Or in empty parking lots

Slit wrists, turning what's left

Of the snow into cherry slushy

I know

All beautiful places

Are prone to natural disaster

But being swallowed

By the earth in manilla

Beats a slow death

In the midwest

Last night i practiced holding my breath

My record is two minutes thirteen seconds

But that was in the swimming pool last summer

It's easier in water

Just do the dead-man's-float

Let your limbs drift

Don't count in your head

Ignore your pumping blood

Focus on the quiet