Harry's House / Centerpiece

Heatwaves on the runway
 As the wheels set down
 He takes his baggage off the carousel
 He takes a taxi into town
 Yellow schools of taxi fishes
 Jonah in a ticking whale
 Caught up at the light in the fishnet windows
 Of Bloomingdale's
 Watching those high fashion girls
 Skinny black models with Raveen curls
 Beauty parlor blondes with credit card eyes
 Looking for the chic and the fancy
 To buy
 He opens up his suitcase
 In the continental suite
 And people twenty stories down
 Colored currents in the street
 A helicopter lands on the Pan Am roof
 Like a dragonfly on a tomb
 And business men in button downs
 Press into conference rooms
 Battalions of paper-minded males
 Talking commodities and sales
 While at home their paper wives
 And paper kids
 Paper the walls to keep their gut reactions hid
 Yellow checkers for the kitchen
 Climbing ivy for the bath
 She is lost in House and Gardens
 He's caught up in Chief of Staff
 He drifts off into the memory
 Of the way she looked in school
 With her body oiled and shining
 At the public swimming pool ...
 * * *
 The more I'm with you, pretty baby
 The more I feel my love increase
 I'm building all my dreams around you
 Our happiness will never cease
 'Cause nothing's any good without you
 Baby you're my centerpiece
 We'll find a house and garden somewhere
 Along a country road a piece
 A little cottage on the outskirts
 Where we can really find release
 'Cause nothing's any good without you
 Baby you're my centerpiece
 * * *
 ...Shining hair and shining skin
 Shining as she reeled him in
 To tell him like she did today
 Just what he could do with Harry's House
 And Harry's take home pay