Track Insight / Lyrics
Coffee goes cold by the windowpane
Dust turns the pages like dust on the brain
Your paperback waits on the kitchen chair
Somebody's ending sits glowing out there
I lent you a novel with a softened spine
You promised to return it by half-past nine
The corners lean where your blue ribbon fell
A grocery list lies folded there as well
[Pre-
Did you leave a sentence I could read?
Or borrow from my future what I'd need?
A date in blue beside a smudge of grease?
That stain was yours; I hid it underneath?
On the last page of a borrowed book
My future and your fingerprints look
A grocery stamp is drying by the date
Two separate endings share this empty space
You call from the bus stop, chewing gum
I answer with the kettle's lazy hum
The paperback sits open on the sill
One page left, and half of it stands still
[Pre-
I trace your pencil arrow down the seam
The arrow stops beside a cooling brew
A damp receipt clings beneath the chair
Your childhood ink still darkens through the tear
On the last page of a whispered book
A future bends beneath your coffee cup
A grocery stamp is drying by the date
Two separate endings write on either page
You leaned beneath the kitchen's narrow roof
Your umbrella left a dark electric streak
A damp receipt clutched tightly by the rack
While thunder shook a spoon from off its track
On the last page of a borrowed book
Our two lives wrinkle in the binding's groove
A grocery stamp is drying by the date
Two separate goodbyes share one empty space
I leave the laundromat in drizzling blue
Your missing glove is tucked inside my coat
Across the street, the number nine won't wait
It honks its answer while I check my date
The binding cracks beneath my steady thumb
A pressed hibiscus drops from page eleven
The hidden word is "stayed"; your accent bends
On every promise landing where it went
On the last page of a borrowed book
Our two names press the same blue ink through
A grocery stamp is drying by the date
One final ending, written just for you
The bus light blinks across the avenue
The kettle clicks; the evening turns me loose
The bookmark slips beneath the kitchen tile
Some endings wait, but this one makes me choose
