Satin Shoes

She was the girl with two flat feet
Walking East without the streets
Her feet bent in from satin shoes
On stages where she paid her dues

Ribbons tied on neck and hair
Sunlight left to make her pale
Fragile limbs and finger tips
Could not scratch her fragile itch

But lovely down and lovely up
Lovely porcelain starving luck
Lovely legs to watch to bend
Picking up the scraps they’d send

And why do people cry when they’re sitting all alone
Missing their mama cuz she never came home
Why do people cry when they’re lying in bed
Laughing so hard to the music in their head
It’s telling them to go--telling them to flee
But momma’s car is parked out back
and parking lots are rarely free

She was the girl with two flat feet
Mending up with torn white sheets
the toes that bent into her shoes
The flatness of her inner bruise

Papa had stayed at home from war
They day they’d seen aside from poor
He couldn’t walk a mile straight,
his feet a turning mess he made

But daughter took her turning fate
And walked into the turning streets
Bracing through the pain of it
The pain of tired brittle feet

So why do people cry when they’re sitting all alone
Hear the phone as it rings
pretending no one’s ever home
If you pretend that you’re not there, a falling tree
without a noise
Listen hard and you can hear
the sound of your own crying voice

Why do people cry when they’re lying in bed
Laughing so hard to the music in their head
Why do people cry when they’re sitting all alone
Missing their mama cuz she never came home
Pick up the phone that rings again and again
Listen to her voice as she says Amen
Girl you have to go you have to take my car
And girl you have to go very very far