Tin-Cup Valentine

I met you behind a ten-cent jukebox, You wore last winter’s loneliness like a scarf around your head. Your laugh was a lopsided bell, We traded crooked smiles and fragile light dreams. I had a pocket full of promises, You had a folded map of heartache and a rosary of dust. We sat on the curb and counted stars with hands that felt like stone, Swore the night would mend us, or we’d mend it on our own. Love’s a tin cup, toss it up, pass it round and don’t you drop it, Fill it with the little things — a half-finished kiss, transient bliss. We drink the bitter, swallow slow, spit the sugar on the floor, Tin-cup valentine, I’ll keep coming back for more. You braided the moon into your hair, I hammered songs on an empty tin, Played a chorus with a rusted spoon and the silence crawled right in. There’s a alley-cat sermon, and a preacher made of cards, We learned to pray to odd machines and love the things that scar. We stitched each other’s sleeves with laughter, sewed a button on the past, Hung our faded photographs where the draughts would never last. When the world put a black hat on morning and the clocks forgot to chime, You pressed your hand to my chest and set the heartbeat back in time. Love’s a tin cup, toss it up, pass it round and don’t you drop it, Fill it with the little things — a whispered joke, vanished in smoke. We drink the bitter, swallow slow, spit the sugar on the floor, Tin-cup valentine, I’ll keep coming back for more. Listen - lovers are like streetlamps: some flicker, some burn long. You can patch a lamp with tape and a prayer, or you can let it hum its wrong. But when the rain comes down and the benches start to pray, You’ll find that light you thought was gone under the lid of yesterday. There’s a man down on Mulberry who knits hope from cigarette smoke, And a child who uses matchsticks to make gods that won’t revoke. We’re all just walking, holding hands with ghosts that used to be, Trading broken lullabies and calling them fidelity. If someday the winds get greedy and the city steals our names, If winter chews the porch-light and only memory remains, I’ll dig you from the pockets of the world, where lost things go to hide, Press your face to mine like thunder, let the thunder be our guide. We’ll dance on the roofs of laundry, spin with the wash-line flags, Toast dawn with a chipped-up teacup, laugh at the ragged tags. ‘Cause love don’t need a label, don’t need a proper shrine, It’ll sing through a cracked radio or hide inside a dime. Love’s a tin cup, toss it up, pass it round and don’t you drop it, Fill it with the little things — a half-finished kiss, transient bliss. We drink the bitter, swallow slow, spit the sugar on the floor, Tin-cup valentine, I’ll keep coming back for more. Keep your coins, keep your tidy plans, I only want your hand. When the nights get mean and the lights go low, I’ll be your fellow woman. We’ll hold the cup between us, humming low and out of time, Two thieves in a backstreet church — tin-cup valentine. Track from the album "Tin-Cup Valentine²