| Tough
I can take a lot you better believe it ,
I can take it that it got to the point
Where you extracted the usual promises
Neither of us knew for sure could be kept ,
Yeah I can take that sweetheart ,
I'm cool with playing the fool for you
To lift your spirits – honey ,
It's no skin off my nose ,
I can take your appropriation
Of my favourite walks and places
So that now our whirling ghosts
Dance there before my nauseous eyes
They'll fade and there are other places
Where my soul can breath – (breathe ?)
I can even take the way the words flowed –
Boiling clouds became picture poems
Along with sudden blue jays
Childhood forests and springtime chestnut candles ;
I meant the words and they still
have some light left in them
But I can't take the day
I picked up one of your shoes
At the end of the crumpled love made bed
While you sang and boiled our coffee
The way I noticed for the first time
How tiny were your feet
As I held the leather
In my hand like an injured bird
Then placed it down with the care of a surgeon ,
Like Jimmy Cagney in Public Enemy
It's down in the roots of me
and I'm forced to say
Enough !
I ain't so tough ,
No , not so tough.
ƒ „
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