Revisionist Poetry – “I Love my Baby, My Baby Don’t Love Me… R. Johnson”, v.4 (blues lyrics)

I love my baby — I love her like a lamp left on,
light thinning into the room when everything else goes quiet.
But she don’t light for me.

We sit and watch the ceiling listen to the radio,
its needle crawling small, the station a far country.
Her mug cools, a moon of coffee left alone.

We walk past houses with their porch lights like small suns,
she hums a tune I once taught her; the tune keeps slipping away.
Her hand in mine is polite — a suit that’s buttoned wrong.

She talks about summer like a photograph she folds into her pocket,
the paper soft where time has touched it.
My future is a ticket I keep pressing into my palm.

We sleep under the same blanket; my shoulder counts the cold.
There is a hollow where our words should be — a little drum of night.
I tell myself the drum will fill; she turns her face to the window.

I love my baby — I call it out until the panes tremble,
my voice a train that leaves the station even when the tracks are gone.
But she don’t come running.

(Repeat softly:) I love my baby.
(Answer:) She don’t love me.

Last light finds the kitchen, a single bulb buzzing low;
two cups on the table, one full of yesterday.
I fold my hands around the warm rim and feel how empty feels like a thing —
a thing you can set down and still hold.