Little Green

Where would I put you?
Where could you go?

The crib doesn’t fit in the living room

Unless I throw out my father’s chair

I don’t have a car

I don’t have a nickel

The fridge is basically just

Sitting there

Who would watch you

While I wait tables

At the cocktail bar?

Who would watch you

When I sleep

All day?

How much could I change

Just because I needed to?

Does change just happen
Naturally?

Is that the way it works?

Nobody ever told me

How it works

Would he come back

To help me?

Would you show us

How it’s done?

What kind of school

Would I send you to?

What if you got sick?
What if you weren’t well?

What if you weren’t

The most self-sufficient kid

That was ever born

To someone?

And who would they send you to?

What would your chances be?

I know what your life

Would look like here

But here’s not much

And there’s only one drawer

With any room in it

The shower doesn’t work

The doors don’t lock properly

The window to the fire escape

Doesn’t open all the way

Who would let me keep you?

If someone had the say

Who would look at

All of this

And tell me

You could stay?

I think in terms of music

It’s all I’ve ever done

The music I could make with you

It’s much too quiet

Much too soft

A baby makes noise

A baby asserts herself

A baby doesn’t care

How much gets done

Or if you want to sleep all day

Or why the shower doesn’t work

Or what excuse her father has

For living a thousand miles away

You’re better off

Rolling the dice

The problem is

You don’t know that yet

So I have to roll for you

And then you get to find out

If I’m wrong

If I had

Two more years

I bet I’d let you stay

Two more years

And this all could be

A mansion

Or a penthouse

Or a farmhouse

In the country

But you don’t have

Two years

Neither of us do

I’m going to give

My mother’s name

To you

And if they let you keep it

Then you’ll have a part of me

And if they don’t
I guess it means

That lost is how

It’s meant to be

It only seems tragic right now

Because the leaves

Are off the trees

But when we’re back

To spring

Spring’s when things

Make sense

I tell myself

I’ll let go you and know why

In the spring

Because where would I put you?

Where could I put you?

I wish I had the room

I wish I had

The biggest room

That anyone’s

Ever seen

And if I had that room

I’d paint it

Green