Joe Sztabnik

Lyrics

WHAT IN THE WORLD

What in the world can I do?
My shoes are still untied.
I trip into people’s lives
and out again,
intimacy as random
as a taxi cab.

I am a broken basket.
Don’t put your eggs in me.

Like Bowie’s girl,
I prefer to stay in my room,
and my eyes are gray.
Sometimes.

It is always sometimes,
and never forever.

My hands are not my hands.
They tell their own stories
in street Spanish,
sign language.

A knife in the park.
A fall on a Central Park rock.
An open artery.

The right one,
evenly tanned.

On the left,
a ring made from a fork.

It won’t come off.
I don’t remember
where I got it,
or how it wrapped
itself around me.

I don’t remember
names, places, birthdays
or my babies’ first words.

I remember this morning.

Keys on the coffee table,
English muffin,
butter melting,
hot cup in the car,
Lou Reed, Sweet Jane,
Chinese proverbs.

Lives saved like pennies,
collected and spent.

I made a pact to live
until I die by hands
other than my own.

So what in the world can I do?

© puma perl, 12/22/09