Man with a watch he embraces like his child
Tugging rats to his wrist in a world of sun dials
His three-piece gleams in this winter back road
And his keys are louder than the cries
For the smiling boy carried home.

Man with a car and brown memories of the south,
And a row of bright skulls kept hidden in his mouth,
He flicks bottle caps to hands that tremble on the ground
And passes neon-burnt stores
In the helm of a suited, grinning hound.

Man with a taste for city-hued lights
Stuffs his son’s photograph in a wallet too tight
Silver ice melts while his whiskey glass lies
And his plastic white teeth keep distracting
From his homeward-bound eyes.