The dead are new and you are quiet, listless in your grave
Where the flowers conspire to pull out your wires and
Place you gently into grace.

Only trust the Gypsy boys who carry their instruments
In cases slapped with stickers of where they’ve been,
The boys who are quiet but for their musical talents,
Who are quiet with even their hands.

And the engines that are pulling you down have
Always been around, they’re named after civilizations
That have been buried by their own mechanics.

Green lights are golden in the winter windowpane,
We laugh at Christmas like we sob at Easter,
Well come on cherished friends, we’ll meet each other
In the end when we fight and fly, we’ll fight and fly
Beside each other now, we’ll break these ankle chains
They’ve fastened to gravestones. It’s time we’ve began

To dance, to sing, to bring bird song into the funeral
Homes where the dead can’t cry because they sell
Coffins and ash urns for poor mannequins molded in
Waxen articulations the color of slaveships. And let
Us laugh and cry, and touch our tongues to the ice cream
Of the sky because time is a fake now that you’re awake
Because you saw the lake where the ancients drank their
Strength from, you’ve loved and been lightly free of gold.

Only trust the Gypsy girls who’s skirts are like patchwork
Quilts unfurled in the wind to dedicate sovereignty to a
Nation of color, a nation sewed together with pulsating
Fingers reaching across the soft fabrics of ourselves.

And drink up, my gentle friend, tonight we’ll die and
Tomorrow we’ll be born again, forgetting about it all.