From A Cutlass Cruiser

What a day we had

I figured I'd be feeling bad, but I don't feel a thing

They read from Mark and bring us all up Shingle Camp Hill Road

Throwing flowers at the ground felt like hours

With the grown-ups whimpering

In the blown-out green of spring I see the whole small town explode

Driving to our house at night

The stars shoot out their shine behind the Olds windows

My father quiet behind the wheel

I fully feel that he knows where he's trying to go

And then they carry me inside

This other world behind my eyes, this bright-lit neon glow

And then it's morning everywhere, and summer air, and there's the stereo

"The Electric Company" was playing when my mom left me five minutes on the couch

And I was blue when she came out, and wasn't breathing

That Opel flew through town

All down 120, and around the Lebanon green, and out

I don't know what they were thinking about

And I don't want to imagine it

In came the doctor, wearing white

Carefully, he cut a circle in my throat

And took a little plastic tube and looped it through my lungs and sealed me closed

My parents called into the room

With no idea what to do but frightened to say so

They showed them how to clean it out, and showed them how to set me down, and sent me home

1983 — the apparition came to me and spoke to me all night

Frozen inside my bed, bone-white, my brother fast asleep

And, under surgery, a second time it came

Showed me a house in outer space

Another boy who had my face

A mom and dad who weren't the same

I woke up and my aunt gave me a book

Show me the neatest place to hide, to crawl inside the silver gym

Don't tell a single other soul

Beneath the bleachers is a lighter, and a sneaker, and a frozen sparrow

I broke into the church at night and pulled out all the stops and heard that organ overload

And screamed, "This giant clashy chord is for Our Lord. Up where he is. Up where he goes"

Up that music floats

Leaving family, friends and home down so small below

And it's still there, for all I know