LARRY HIRSHBERG

Checkerboard Heart

(chorus)
It's all red like blood when it starts
But black is the color of every other part
Of my checkerboard heart

On the trees cherries burn up a hill
On my table in a bowl they're burning still
On my table written in your heavy ink
Is the story that you told, the one that made me think

Chorus

There's a spider marked with an hourglass
Waits to feed on anything that might come past
All precision and all business waiting there
The beginning and the end just hanging in the air

Chorus

Through the haze that settles thickly in the west
The sun appears to cool slowly as it sets
While in the east dark heat rises like a tide
One foot and then another day and then the night

Chorus