Carousing with you is like tasting my first ripe nectarine,

Like sticking my toe inside a black slinky limousine.

Discovering the punch packed by a well-made trampoline.

The clinking, chinking victory from a Vegas slot machine.

Getting up there with the band and playing tambourine,

which fits just right enveloped in a haze of nicotine.

Do you remember me then, in my skin of seventeen?

All long, safe skirts, docile shirts, and coat of velveteen?

I wasn't new, wasn't wise, but somewhere in-between,

And you said you'd like to meet me, up on the mezzanine.

For all I knew you could've been some hard-core libertine

(When people spoke your name it always reeked of mescaline)

Across the room I saw your form, smiling serpentine,

Smiling at the startled skin of my philistine.

You scraped a way and took me down, into your submarine,

Which was a fright, though welcome break, from my quarantine.

You're all the things I never found in teeny magazines,

And I still find you on the streets on blacked-out Halloweens.



If you were flavor in my mouth you'd taste of wintergreen.

If you were creature by my feet you'd be a wolverine.

If you were gadget by my bed you'd be a dream machine.

If you were prophet at my door you'd be a Nazarene.

An incendiary spirit, match plus gasoline.

Screwball eyes with lenses that are coloured tourmaline.

A sly expert who trips me into the unforeseen.

Beloved imp who teaches me to keep me evergreen.