His Son Her Daughter
When his son isn’t posing or posting
Answering back or remaining stubbornly silent
Isn’t flirting or laughing
Or playing or chatting, or sneaking off
When he isn’t in his room or in his girlfriend’s
When he isn’t is school or looking for a job
Isn’t dodging taunts, or sleet
When he isn’t confounding his elders
She’s having her fifteen minutes
Via snaps of her on her bare, stained, mattress
One she shares with three others
in a bare, stained, room
And in paragraphs read by the other half
Describing her half-life
Call it seven and a half minutes
She’ll be remembered by the least myopic
Because though her case has been made
and made quite well
Her brilliance recorded
Her great appeal underlined
There are those who will comment upon her name
Chosen by a mother
Named after a perfume HER mother couldn’t afford
After a precious blue bottle of water
She herself could never
His son, his beautiful, beautiful, brown and shining son
In whom he’s invested all of his goodness
Fear, longing, anger, history and heritage
In hope hat he might rise up and sing
Or find a cure, or fly a rocket, anything
May be spread eagle, thrown against a building wall
Rough-handled, cursed at, beaten, or worse
Or worse or worse or worse
Is this why it’s harder for the rich to enter heaven
Than it is for a camel…
You know the rest
Because the eye of a needle is so much wider
Than the eye of the beholder?
All words and music by Dave Hall ©
Publisher: Row House Music PRO: ASCAP
