Lucy Dreams in Black and White

Lucy dreams in black and white

And pies fly by

With clown nose cherries

Placed on top

Lucy dreams of Friday night

With chocolates

And special episodes

Crushing grapes

And Vita-Vita-Vita-Vita

She wears a checkered dress

And fantasizes about her hair

Being so red

It cuts through

The black and white

She’s in a show

She does a dance

She goes to Europe

She comes back

From out beyond a pale blue screen

There’s a static wave

Of giggles and guffaws

There’s a wall of time

This clock Japan

This clock London

This clock New York

She tells jokes

To women

Twenty years from now

And they tell her

A few

The New York clock

Tells her it’s time

To put on her shoes

And get ready to dance

Lucy lives in three walls

And black and white

She meets new people

She tells them what to say

She lets them get the laugh

Sometimes it’s good

To let somebody else

Get the laugh

Her wedding ring

Is dull under the glare

Of the studio lights

The tap tap tap

Of the director’s foot

As he waits

For the shot to be set

She hits her mark

She says her line

She doesn’t break a sweat

Under the hot white light

Lucy gets in a marriage bed

That’s just for show

And Lucy dreams

In black and white

She narrates her thoughts

To empty chairs

Where laughing strangers

Used to sit

She gives speeches

To tables

Of women

With distinguished achievements

But none

As distinguished

As hers

She takes compliments

She reads scripts

She hears someone say

She should cut her hair

She is not going

To cut her hair

She talks about doing a movie

She won’t do the movie

She’d like to do the movie

There will be no movie

There will never be a movie

Or color

Never real color

Years from now she’ll dream

Of green and gold

Burgundy and olive

Lavender and emerald

But for now

It’s black and white

The television turns itself off

But the dreams never do

They play and play

While Lucy sits in a kitchen

Where nothing is cooked

She can go into a living room

Where nobody lives

Or a bedroom

Where nobody sleeps

She can dream

And dream

And dream

But never sleep

When you sleep

You sleep

In color

But you can only dream

In black and white