Wurlitzer

I knew you well inside this house, and you allowed it all. You bore my foibles with grinning patience, and that grin, well, I tickled it.

I'll play a strange song today as we set out for our stroll. What do you know, the wind is joining right in, and the fog, too. The men on the rooftops are keeping time with their hammers. The girl with a bicycle is doing a dance. The man and his damn dog are writing their review, scathing and unamused. No one will read it.

They'll all just watch and try to discern. "Uprights for joyrides? Well, I never." Yet by we pass, me holding you up around corners, while you hold the note. Somehow, we're both succeeding, knowing each others' limits but not letting on to a single soul.

We'll likely never stroll these streets again, but... no, not now. Let's not know that right now. Let's make like it's old hat, this promenade. Here, how about that old tune, the one about old what's-her-face, in the good old key of E. A one and a two and a one two three -- red light. Driver, take a left.

Take us someplace nice, someplace with a story. Take us to the hideout of some old rum-running, moon-shining sonvabitch. Some forgotten piece of unimportant history.

Prop the doors for us, now, as we waltz in and clumsily amble down the narrow stairway. I know, Friend, that your legs aren't what they used to be. It's okay, we made it. Just rest here a while.