There’s a train rolling somewhere past the treeline,
it don’t stop here no more.
The screen door’s humming like a nervous witness,
dust dancing on the floor.
I got a coffee going cold on the nightstand,
got your name caught in my throat,
like a harmonica bent out of key
on a long and lonesome note.
They say time is a clean white highway,
but mine’s full of side roads and sparks.
Every sign points straight to the future,
but the rearview’s lit up in the dark.
You left your poems on the rumbler,
like evidence I can’t ignore.
Teeth in heart, babe, teeth in heart,
and I’m bleeding metaphors.
The radio’s preaching redemption,
the preacher’s asking for cash,
I’m thumbing through saints and strangers
in a paperback smelling like ash.
If love’s just a ghost in the circuitry,
flickering blue in the night,
why does it bite like a memory
and glow like a dashboard light?