The Flooding Basement and the Carriage Strung

Blunt guts and cigarette butts In the coffee cups and beer cans That I spit out groggily in the morning Hurl into my trashcan The landlady upstairs scurried outside the basement door Knob dropped clattered down stairs Sighed to myself Removed the cloth of the typewriter Keys cold on my fingers "Hello it's me Margaret and if you must know I am not sober" When father lies on his deathbed Will he think of the music we made and the scripts to mend? Or about how Autumn falls and it might never fall again? Lift my hand to scratch my head, my scalp is damp and my hair is wet Grabbed some duct tape to patch the pipes overhead The vacuous space that the page conveys Spread words across its surface digging roaches out the ashtray "I am the woman in the flooded basement And I don't want to live if it's without you" How did it all get so frail and frightfully irreversible? Pretty women don't light their own cigarettes But here I am What am I tirelessly working for?