why’d you wait so long
before you first came over?
September was a backpack
you pulled across your shoulder
with the sunlight that turned to frost
and the train tracks we used to cross
with the people who sat across
when the wild eye inside you shuddered
your guilty smile feigned and fluttered
why’d you wait so long
before you first came over?
the leaves that once were dog-tied
have whirled past my shoulder
with your smooth hand upon my knee
and your pained look of symmetry
with your whisper in my memory
as the wild eye inside you shuddered
your guilty smile feigned and fluttered
you stained my bedpost and you stained my curtain
perfumed my pillow, now I can’t stop flirtin’
but what can I do?
if we had more time I might have stained
you too
but that season left the loom
under half of an evening moon
when you said you would see me soon
then the wild eye inside you shuddered
your guilty smile feigned and fluttered
why’d you
wait for
so long, so long
why’d you
wait for
so long, so long
Words and music by Rick Stachura. “Why’d You Wait?” October 2001.
Photo by Rick Stachura. In the Rose and Dahlia Gardens at Untermyer Gardens. Yonkers, NY. November 2, 2022.