David Keenan Full Stop
I remember you standing at the back doorstep
In your mother's apron
A new day's sun hit the side of your face
Illuminating the split ends of your hair
Breakfast was cooking in the kitchen
As I read a dead poet's words in the garden
And I'd never seen you so beautiful before
Last night's love still clinging to your skin
Hair unbrushed, one bare foot on the other
Class personified in the Oxfam dress
Holiest of shows I'd seen
Come back to me now in waking dream, won't you?
Come back to me now in waking dream, won't you?
Come back to me now in waking dream
Stand beside me when all the buses have stopped
And lollypop ladies have drawn their last drag
When the debutante queen's been reduced to a hag
It is you and only you, full stop
It is you and only you, full stop
Holy laughter in the phosphorus morning
Eternally young, old age never deserving
It is you and only you, full stop
It is you and only you
When the strung-out ghosts of boredom
Come screaming from the pit
I will take your ear lobe gently between my teeth
I'll stand guard outside your door
While you starve yourself of sleep
It is you and only you, full stop
It is you and only you, full stop
Pour your tears into my mouth
Take this gift of quiet love
Plant a kiss upon my neck
As I reach down to tie your laces
Think of our children's children's children
And the shape of their faces
It is you and only you, full stop
It is you and only you
Our well-worn names
They shall live on in mind and in myth
And in the skipping rope games of little gypsy girls
Around their campfires in the country
And their song like prayers
And in the whisperings of young cousins sat on rotting stairs
It is you and only you, full stop
It is you and only you
As the hands begin to spin within the clocks
While the dealers selling dreams bag up their stock
So I climb and search for answers in the rock
To a sermon on the mount where the masses flock
When they get bored and disappear inside to window shop
It is you and only you, full stop
It is you and only you, full stop