Sing It Like I Wrote It

Look how the high notes open,

row by row, like balconies —

tonight I am the building,

tonight the gold is warm.

[close, dry - the inner voice]

And under every phrase, like a floor,

sing it like I wrote it.

And I do.

Note for note, I do.

They're on their feet — for me.

For me?

For the shape he poured me in.

The applause comes through the walls of me

and lands somewhere below.

The critics have their houses' names,

the flowers climb the dressing room,

they say a star, they say a birth —

[dry] a birth. That's nearly it.

Something was born up here tonight.

I carried it. I labored.

Sing it like I wrote it.

It has his eyes. It has his everything.

They're on their feet — for it.

The it he built inside my throat.

I take the bow. The bow is mine —

the bow is the one thing that's mine.

I bow very well.

And the roar becomes a weather,

and the weather has no name in it —

listen — no name in it —

they are cheering, and none of them

are cheering anyone.

They were on their feet all night.

He was in the walls all night.

And when the last note left me

perfect, obedient, his —

here is the thing I'll say only once,

only here, only small:

I have never felt so loved.

That's how it works, isn't it.

That's exactly how it works.