Rocketman

Troubadour nights,

Dresses tight, bottles of wine

Electric boots, sheets of linen

Here’s what I really mean

 

You must have seen

Her, dancing in the sand

Not Rio, a Tiny Dancer

Married a music man

 

Sweet eyes and a pirate smile

High class lady, not from New Orleans

I’m the judge, and she’s on trial

The pilot steers the Rocketman

 

Now it’s been a long, long time

Sorry’s still the hardest word

The crocodile ate the rock

Boy, it must’ve been green

 

Still standing at the altar,

Red dress for my bloodshot eyes

The church to the diving board,

Chlorine baptism for a suicide

 

Bernie and his private jets,

The women, the cars

Drained coins from his pocket,

And ink from his pen

 

I wanted love, and a different kind

Swapped a man for the world and

The suburb bricks made me blind

Turning yellow in that sun

 

I faked my smile, they gave me theirs

Stretched with two fingers across their faces

By the hands on my piano keys

Theirs were the sweetest smiles I’d ever seen

 

Beth Gordon-Taylor, 2019