Oh sister, don't be afraid of me
I won't be nailing you down in the nursery
Just like the rest of them did
With those watery, wandering fingers that slipped
That were supposed to be glorious and fine.

Oh sister won't you believe in me
I only wanted to be hard on the family
Here with you now in this silly infirmary
Your mother makes frantic and drunk calls
From Germany all of the time.

Oh sister, sweet brown and beulahery
And milk from your blisters on your grandmother's jewelry
There in the parlor all naked in front of me
Watching the lights from the cracks
Making archery animal designs.

Rose Wallace Goldeline just moves her mouth over anything
Fleshy free and flowering with oranges out in the open
But don't you waste your sins again
She don't need you or won't fuck your friends
And you, you're American, so important boiling over
To prove that she must still exist
she moves herself about her fist
and never ever gave a shit
about all those words you're wasting again
Some pretty bright and bubbly wondrous dream
you'd like to kill and claim
And claim her as your own
But don't you worry
All those dainty and dirty emotions
just go away and fade out on their own
Sister, now that we're grieving
Our fingers will falter
Our lungs will be leaking
All over each other and without even speaking
We'll know that it's over and smile and go greeting
Whatever comes next

And oh sister
You're getting married with some angry twister
That you'll have to carry home
drunk every evening from the cemetery
And if he makes it back half alive you can
bury him under your sheets
And oh sister
now that you're leaving
I can not imagine there is any meaning
forgetting you ever could once had the feeling that made you keep on
And pretend you were breathing of all of this world
In an age of empty rings
I don't want to feel the thing
I don't even want to know
and Rose Wallace Goldeline
don't you ever die on me
all the way it goes.