I was stuck inside on the night it snowed in the middle 
of August  yeah, it piled up in the road  and I was 
staring out the window. I walked out and closed the 
screen door behind me as I left the scene. I was off in 
search of headlights. It was after midnight when under 
the stars and not too far, I stood in the middle of 
Powell Boulevard and hoped they'd run me over, wished 
they'd run me over with all their cars. I dropped the 
wait for winter's ending, and when it arrived it had 
shown up too late. By then my only friend had left 
through the garden gate. Some think so much of belated 
fashion, but straggling summer just finds me irate. I 
own one scuffed pair of sneakers while the girl's got 
skates. I was searching for coins in the flashlight 
beam. They'd pay for my European dreams  yeah, they'd 
fund my operation, the one where I amputate my heart 
and bronze it in the name of art. I had a sense of 
humor, but that muscle's like a tumor ever since she 
called, phoning in to retire. Man, I felt like phoning 
in dead on my side of the wire. I spoke what I was 
thinking, but hope was quickly sinking like a cement 
tire on a truck that's crashed into the lake. I'd felt 
like begging, 'Oh, can't you wait a little longer 
before you hang up, though i've nothing to say? Not a 
single word unspoken is left today. It's not as if 
you're lacking topics, so can't you just pretend I'm 
Michelle Lamanet and we're talking as if skies weren't 
so gray?' Soon I found myself outside her house. Not a 
creature was stirring, not even a mouse, and the 
windows were all shuttered. Up in her room I saw a 
silhouette. My heartbeat doubled, tripled  castanets 
were crashing in my ears, and all that I could hear was 
an old melody: 'Oh, your toes and oh, your nose. When 
you arrive, the night it glows. Your eyes they are 
flourescents, your eyes they are flourescence upon the 
snow.'