Promise Me a Velvet Sky

Promise me a velvet sky

And I’ll decide

If you deserve me

One day I’m going to be old

And you’re going to be gone

And I’ll say—

What do I have?

What do I have

After all that

Hemming and hawing

What do I have left

From two days in Acapulco

With a sandwich man

Who forgot the bread?

Velvet, you know

Everybody could use a little velvet

In their lives

You got the mosquito netting

All tucked around you

Like it’s going to protect you

From things that bite

The bugs aren’t the only things

That bite around here

That preacher’s going on

Calling out for repentant souls

To join him

In the flagellating

And gyrating
And gesticulating

Onto the weeping stones

They’ll rock

Delivering their private transgressions

To the Lord above

Mercy

Mercy

Mercy

And you?

What are you gonna do?

Just lay there

Listening to them

You think they’re gonna stay down

Below our fancy veranda

And not look up

While they’re looking for God?

Realize that we’re tucked away cozy

Riddled with our sin

Making fools of their Latin piety?

They’re going to race up here

Tear you off of me

And say I was attacked

That I was assaulted

And what’ll I have

To show ‘em that I wasn’t?

A velvet sky?

You could give me one

Paint it on my skin, Mr. Sandwich Man

I’m as hungry as anyone

You’re likely to meet

This far from the border

Para ceiling fans turn slowly, you know?

Ventiladores de techo giran lentamente

Lazy they are

Just

Like
You

You and your big muscles
And your big brain

With its big ideas

Wandering through town

Looking for a heart to corrupt

And didn’t I give you mine?

And didn’t it satisfy you?

And didn’t it bleed

Just how you wanted it to?

And did I ask you

For anything in return?

Did I want money

Like all those other greedy hands

Reaching out to you

When you got off the boat?

Little monsters

With open mouths

Looking for coins

Or chocolate

Or the body of Christ

To cleanse their eternal hunger

If not they’re physical pangs?

Crees que no sé quién eres

Oh I knew

I knew all along

But you had clouds

Floating around your head

And I just love

A trip up to nowhere

So I prayed

For you to take me back here
To this room

I wanted you to lay me out

Under these abrigado sheets

Where I could sweat out

All my worst desires

And you did it, didn’t you?

You made it all happen

For me

And I’m grateful to you

But what are you going to do now, huh?

Now that the prayers

Come with knives

And the Bible-thumpers

Want to do

Something more

Than thump?

What

Are you

Gonna do

Now?

You’ll have to let me know

Or don’t

Or wait

Take as long as you want

I’m not like everybody else, you know

I just love

Being kept

In the dark