May I Call You Beatrice

Just a little thought in the head of the one

With the sunburnt cheeks and the eyes to the ground

Making earwaxed tongue-tied gutter sounds

Thinking of the lost rib, dialing the indelible

Thinking the unthinkable-no one's home

And the eyes say I don't believe we've met

I don't believe you've had the privilege

I don't believe we've met

When the wind blows cold

And the eyes of the child grow old

When the erratic conga rises and falls

Above the faithful metronome

You can take me back to the gravestone

See her strain from the weight of the globe

Spinning around his assumptions-barefoot and tight-lipped

He in his favourite chair blowing his world around

First she's Beatrice, then she's a pumpkin

Then she's a faded leaf in a book on his pantry shelf

The head sees the hand play with the ring in the pocket

And the head knows the hand knows the ring is as round

As the tear-soaked shoulder in a room in another town

The ring is getting heavy and so is the crown

Which she drags to the chair feebly to keep the swelling down

When the bird in the bush is worth two in the hand

And the empty cage holds the empty man

The bird keeps flying from the Orgoglian rising

And the phone keeps ringing and the phone keeps ringing

And the ring keeps slipping and the phone

And the phone keeps on ringing

And he's thinking about the one who got away