S I N G I N G C O M B A T
BY JEFF TWEEDY
- - - -
just as you approach ... a package
pulling at its bow, I see your face
retreating from singing combat
from falling down a flight of stairs
our good days, our parents old, radiant beauty
back there behind the sunshine
I believe your sorrow was sunshine
murdered for longing, your broken package
a crushed open can of a pure bug's beauty
crawling up lip and lash on your face
before afternoon smiled for climbed stairs
all because your laugh suggested combat
it seems worthwhile to wish for combat
steadying knees knotting in the sunshine
bracing knuckles unskinned on stairs
where the tree-lit pattern and wrapped package
conceals no thoughtless purchase of your face
and kills no surprise of beauty
attacked by love laughing with beauty
the four winds blow and the brave combat-
ants have no weapons, no face
no fear, no mirror to hurt sunshine
they pry to know this ticking package
but none can climb so many soft stairs
they fall in heaps at the bottom of these stairs
wounded and comforted only by beauty
they come tangled in twine to tie this package
and limping away whisper combat
and say later it was a somewhat shaded sunshine
approaching along with your face
and the starlight we're running to face
scales slowly twisting the stairs
how love stops blood in sunshine
not worth the fight but for beauty
we will go far away from this singing, combat
and become ourselves armored packages
to face sunlight, starlight, sunshine
packaged with beautiful notes scaling stars
you are not above saying combat
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