theme park ride in late spring
(keep your arms inside the cart, in the 90s someone died from standing up)
the idaho heat outside was stifling
(out of place in a foreign land, melting like a snowman in the sand)
no relief even with the night falling
(the fevered sky just fell asleep, the polluted light a sickly yellow sheet)
the fevered sky just fell asleep
(so it seems did everything, except for you and me)

lifted the latches on the hotel doors
(eyes aflame, each movement wary, left quiet as a monastery)
and entered the fairground half past 4
(hotel lobby rolled up rug, thrown atop the chainlink we climbed up)
hid from the guards behind wooden tracks
(I thought my heart would burst my flesh, I swore the entire park could hear our breath)
we’d made it this far, there was no going back
(finally found the opening, in the stony ground, we lowered down beneath)

down earthy steps (toward the darkened void)
into the depths, (where we’d heard the humming noise)
as if the park were a chest (with lungs beneath the soil)
and we’d felt their breath (ascending from drain holes)
tried to forget, (but we couldn’t leave it be)
wide awake in bed (we had to go and see)
near a maintenance shed (by the ferris wheel)
to my deep regret (all of it was real)

down by the mall and the dealership
(designer clothes and brand new cars, for our threadbare souls and salvage title hearts)
still clouded by the appalling thing we did
(it stubbornly stuck to our souls, like oatmeal dried and hardened in a bowl)
we lost count of all the meals you skipped
(easy to become confused, consuming or from inside being consumed)

the story spread through town like a disease
(passing on from head to head, like a start of amish friendship bread)
we implored it to die down, but it just increased
(some tales take on their own life, when you cut them up, their single cell divides)
beneath the floor of the house, it laid wrapped in sheets
(cops came knocking on the door, the planks creaking like gallows on the porch)
with our aortas in our mouths, we couldn’t speak
(we grabbed our backpacks and some cash, went through the broken bathroom window then we ran)

and we ran (like a river’s lofty mouth)
toward the railroad tracks (to an ocean of a crowd)
with my glass-cut hands (left our DNA)
out on the lam (our blood atop the frame)
to the furthest town, (where no one knows our names)
draw the curtains down, (on our acting every day)
or to deserted ground, (where not a soul remains)
we might not be found (but from ourselves we can’t escape)

Let’s just stay here and admire the morning dawn
(we'll lie down in the tall green grass, watching the clouds and heavy hours pass)
Let’s just hang out here like pirates on the dock
(stay here for a good long while, passing time like middle age sundials)
We’ve been courting disaster since childhood
(splintered bones in little league, splintered grown-up psyche in a seed)
We’ve been boarding the ark last-minute every flood
(what’s it matter if we don't get on? the rest won’t even notice that we’re gone)

suspended from a chain, in your rusted chest
(kept it there with the dead spiders in moth bit blankets 'round red-eyed pictures)
I heard your heart break in my own head
(rich and sonorous, and forlorn, like the closing of a station wagon door)
I’ve never heard so much pain or conflict
(it burned and flooded, it sailed and sparked, and turned to mud like Noah’s Joan of Arc)

theme park ride in late spring
(i know you used to love me then, maybe you do still, but I won’t pretend)
the idaho heat outside was stifling
(I know you used to love me then, the way an amputee loves tourniquets)
No relief even with the night falling
(I know you used to love me then, you don’t suppose you could love me once again?)
The fevered sky just fell asleep
(preserve in amber all the best, in sunken chambers, let the rest rest)