in a scene from better times your traitor hangs up right there next to mine the afternoon shakes down the trees like they owed it money hey buddy please get in line their promise of green fruit is gone its bruised out there on the lawn he who cannot be seduced cannot be saved i hang ready to be swayed our hunger to be new begins but slips the yoke like it was a second skin its walking back the shadow moon as if on a string a listing black balloon that turns its face and mounts the wall to show a slower way to fall oh you hold me by a thread and fall away i stand hungry to be swayed im torn to think this storm will rise already its tattered my sail and thin disguise i ve bent my song like broken words could call to me your whirling skittish birds i write to you dear stranger mine but stranger still the hand of time has laid its ragged coat across our way i lie ready to be swayed