Streetlight Sestina
Oh tell me darling what it was you heard When you heard my voice calling out In the glow of a streetlight in the rain He beckoned to you while I begged you to wait And I can't see, is it his hand you hold? And were they my lips that you read?
Oh and I swear I never would've read The words if I knew how they'd hurt Numbers and letters dug a six foot hole In my chest and now I can't get out I'm anchored by my lover's weight And I grow fearful of the rain
Oh and when the kingdom rises to end her reign And her flags burn bloody red I'll wait, oh on my life I'll wait, Upon the parapet for her And long after the pyres burn out I'll keep her torch to hold.
Oh but she never saw him at his whole, He was already half-drowned by the rain And she never saw the things he's now without The water washed away all there was to read And when she lay her head on his chest she never heard His heart, and he never felt her weight.
Oh and now he's calling out to you to wait Now he's begging for you to hold Back the waves, hold back the herd But they stampede when you give him the reins So you let go of all the letters left unread And disappear as the streetlight shorts out.
Oh and if you get to thinking of what you're now without, Know now you've gotta carry the weight Of the love poems you never read And see the floodwaters filling up the hole Left by a sillouhette in the rain And forget what you may or may not have heard.
Oh and did he realize the weight one heart can hold? Oh did she see the words spelled out in the rain? Oh will you read aloud the things that you hurt?