Politics Of Grooming - Slaughter Beach, Dog

I know the you when you are getting dressed

Is not the you I’ve really come to know

She speaks in shorter phrases

And she often can’t remember

Which impulsive words were emitted as response

But it’s not as selfish or as spanned attention

Rather preference for the politics of grooming

Hell I’d paint my face and fingers

And my toes and lips and eyelids

If it meant tonight I didn’t have to think about the future

Just to fixate my attention on a wooden powder pencil

Not a single thought devoted

To whatever’s on outside the house

Or even past the door your mother’s bathroom

Where we’re sitting

And surviving on the steadiness of passing time

So when the lines are drawn and all the powders matted

You’ll be standing there blinking at your image

And you wished that it would turn around

And do what it’s supposed to

But reflections do not turn themselves away

When you were younger and your mother started drinking

She would tuck you in and close your bedroom door

Then one day you sprung awake

Inside a turning twisted dream

And you ran downstairs to find her laying out across the floor

She did not hear you softly crying near

Or feel your mouth all hot against her ear

So you kissed her like she taught you

And for the first time on a head you got up and tucked your own self in the bed

So when the lines are drawn and all the powders matted

You’ll be standing there blinking at your image

And you wished that it would turn around

And do what it’s supposed to

But reflections do not turn themselves away

Yeah you wished that you would turn around

And do what you’re supposed to

But it’s easier to blink and stare and stay