Jill Hennessy Erin
where are you going?
could i meet you? got a late shift tonight
i’d feel better if i could go with you -
to the rail…
up the stairs…
to the perfumed back room where the girls all comb
their hair -
to the bar with black light she downs shots
to feel right about the business suits,
the laughing men,
the hungry eyes,
she turns again to make sure that i’m still waiting
there by the door
then she dances some more, all alone on the floor
erin doesn’t like to be alone so i play her bodyguard
‘til she gets home - her platinum hair in a broken
band, her cigarette lit, we walk hand in hand and catch
the night train and try to laugh all the truth away -
she says how do you do it? i don’t think i’m smart - i
got no one behind me, i can’t feel my heart but i try
to use whatever god gave me, try to save up my money
and someday maybe i won’t hear my father’s footsteps
behind my door – i won’t hear them no more
so she dances some more, high heels scraping the floor
she never talked about you in those 3 am calls when
she’d throw her new plates at her sea foam green walls
trying to buy some new lies from that smug pusher-whore
with his preppy blond hair who i kicked out the door,
her pretty blue eyes ringed in black and red as she
crumples again at the foot of her bed but I know…what
you did
and she dances some more, all alone on the floor, her
tired ballet for the poor, and i just wait by the door
