The Cabriolet

We leave the party at two or three
You hitch a lift in my Cabriolet
And though it's misty I'm just too tired or too lazy to close the soft top
And I don't stop you when you curl your body, cold in your little black mini
And hold it against me

All night I've been flirting with everyone except you
How you explain my failure to find you as attractive as everyone else seems to I just don't know
But there's wind in our hair and drink in our systems
Breaking the ordinary inhibitions
And on the cassette some Louisiana Creole music
And you decide you want a cigarette
And though it only takes a second to demonstrate the gadget in the dash
I miss the black and white chevrons of the steep bend warning
And there's the sound of something smashing
Then nothing beneath the tyres of the Cabriolet ...

In the sudden shock of silence, with the morning star above you
Lying bizarre in the wreck of my car ...

Maybe I'm drunk and hallucinating
Maybe this isn't happening
Maybe you aren't lying there with tears in your little party dress
At the waist and the breast
Because in real life I was never this aroused by you
I was never this impressed
Your face unstained, unharmed but drained pale
Is suddenly more strange and beautiful than anything I've ever seen or ever will
Bathed in the light of the morning star I see someone I never took the trouble to know
Someone I only now begin to feel I could love or make love to
I'm moved and aroused to see you in this strange new way
Bathed in the starlight filtering through the myriad fragments
Of the freshly shattered windscreen of the Cabriolet

In the sudden shock of silence, with the morning star above you
Lying bizarre in the wreck of my car ...
... I love you

In the sudden shock of silence, with the morning star above you
Lying bizarre in the wreck of my car ...