Be Careful, It’s My Heart

Summer, 2008 / No. 20

it’s Bing Crosby in blackface in a movie about Christmas

it’s everybody dancing and smiling like umbrellas

ashtrays on every table

it’s clever people acting yokel, talkin’ homesy

it’s everything corny and good old days

it’s stretching a rhyme, working a bit

it’s not my watch you’re holding, it’s my heart

it’s home cooking and production numbers

taxis and telegrams and New York over the holidays

shiny shoes and hidden string selections and cigarettes

fake-snow machines, empty dance floors, perfect

choreography—boy meets girl, boy dances with girl

it’s the manic smiles, the constant mugging for invisible

cameras, it’s the smugness and the white-bread

the high-riding trousers, the pie-plate ties

all that pomade, those demure manners, the hip lingo

wasted on squares

it’s a world of fairy tales without any dragons, but

with plenty of evil queens, everyone is gay and that’s not queer

it’s singing in the rain, dancing in the dark, till the clouds roll by

me and my gal

who could ask for anything more?

The Talking Creek Talking Magazine
Be Careful, It's My Heart
Read by Patrick Rawley