the caryatid's yielded, crushed and split by the harshest of winters
watch her claw and scratch as her last match burns her fingers
a broken umbrella beside her, ribs splayed like a spider in a pool of raspberry cider that flows to the gutter
and on our next segment: "Salvation Still Stagnant: a priest with pauses so pregnant his pupils all stutter"

this city is senseless
with its slow deadly wink and all it entails
we're hopeful atlantes with feet of clay
behind that hatch
is a pain that scratches your eyeballs with rusty nails
38 scraps of flesh in a fireworks display

and I can't see how things could be any different
lick the back of Jenny I'm sealed and ready for shipment
for after all, swallowed up in the squall, we're so impossibly small and sadly amusing
butterfly wings on my back and teeth ready to crack, you'd have to wind me up just to get me moving!

how does it happen
the flesh is sad and i've read every book
I won't look out for flashers when I cross the road
I'll bow to the sisters
the way a pawn bows to a rook
but someday the blisters will have to explode

but I swear somebody stands at the doll's end
with needles and sunscreen in each of his hands
so empty the rose of your cheeks in hollow wineglasses
and row through the days of the week with batting eyelashes

the world's illuminated
when i see through the eyes of billy the kid
it's true and it's fated the patterns persist
so drop both your gauntlets
keep fletching arrows and watch the cars skid
past the houses once haunted now covered in mist