We used to know all the words to American Pie, you and I;
we sang them in the groaning waywards of the asylum drive
as we trailed home from the party
where we tipped off the old lady's wig;
and her face, the stricken layers of shame and disgust
at her fled youth, that will stay with me like a stain
bleeding through all the sopping layers of guilt I paint upon it;
We will both be old soon, creased up as a forgotten
tissue in pocket, silvered eyes greedy for the plump skin
and uncaring bodies of the days when we drank and danced
and sang verse after verse of Don McLean;
when we skipped into the lidless night
past the cries rolled around the bloated mouths
of the desolate and desperate;
Little, then, did we think of times to come when
those lyrics would scrape savage like threats in our heads
and we would twitch our thin grey hair
as we sobbed at the violent justice of years;
And little did we know that the wild voices
in the asylum that raised to meet ours in verse
sang to us of our wretched futures
in words we did not yet know.