Meet me at St. Nicholas Among the oaks Behind the church That sway like pig-tailed girls As summer wind whistles Around your bare-skin knees And the forsythia leaves In the shade Lay with me Tickled by The feather reed That's where the trees grow old Under the ivy's hold As you in my two arms Equally safe from harm And in a hazy day dream Our bodies married the stream And we broke down into pebbles and silt The water ran from the fields Until the oceans we filled And found the sea-bed the comfiest quilt There was more life in the weeds than in the few hundred seats In rows from transept to chancel to nave And when their anger had paused, I turned and answered their calls With “you're just audience, I'm the applause” We take on the burden of all these sad-eyed children With lilies bunched in our hands We fake our concern and speak softly as the surgeon Tells wife to cancel her plans Take a body to water, take a body to tundra Just take me with you as well