Stephen Fretwell Follow

I walk by the water and
Head for your house
Though I know that you'll be out
In some dirty city bar

I stand on your street
And I stare at your room
And the shadows play and move
And your brother comes out with a bat

Saying that
You might be with your sister in Paris
On the Rue Turnau

Wearing Marline Dietrich glasses
Where we made that bet
That bet I knew you'd win for sure
When you where sick on the floor

The calico's ripped
Beneath the patch
It's an itch I can never scratch
Now it's so far gone in the past

The fines I'm
Having trouble to contest
With the library book you kept
The one that sent your head so far west

Far, far away
In those continental cities
Where they get in a race
To see who can build the tallest buildings

Where you went for some space
And wound up
With a slightly redder face
And a pain in your gut

I turn on the TV
And I see there your face
And in it is not one trace
Of that old brown bowl of lace

And that bowl of lace
Is sat beside the gas bar fire
Where you probably laid
Eating ice cream chocolate lollies

That your mother brought home
From the freezer store
On the Old Kent Road
She too had enough

And that look on your face
That you'd throw across the dinner table
In the middle of grace
Your fathers eyes closed shut tight

And it happened like that
Every damn night
That I had to come
To your house

Well, tell Charles O'Keefe
That I don't want to go to Paris
It's sunnier here
And I'm happy in this loveless marriage

With the girl from the Pru
And your father and your sister
And your mother too
And not forgetting you