Rood Boy Blues

Symbols lingering in the sutures
 Where I've stitched our lives together
 Your body figures in my future
 With a boa's tender tether
 I've got a love to shelter us
 Like a flesh and bone umbrella
 A holy home
 Hewn in stone
 Sanctified and hallowed
 Well, you know that deed
 Will be deemed undue
 When they pry my cold dead hands off you
 Nimble fingers stroll your velvet cheeks
 A tear appears and travels
 Well, I've scoped the scape
 And I will not speak
 While brittle ties unravel
 Well, I got a love like a carnal cope
 A sanguine shrine, a boney tope
 But I see the ciphers
 In your eyes
 Like hungry hempen collars
 Well, you'll know you're free
 You'll know we're through
 When they pry my cold dead hands off you
 My hands
 Can't set you free
 O, they cleave to thee
 O, they fall to atrophy
 My hands
 Have two holes that sing
 When I clench the rings
 Where I wore the rood of love
 No agency, no measure
 Could lessen love's great torture
 But with my hands upon this treasure
 Death itself becomes conjecture