PERISHABLE

[Chorus]
They take the rot out piece by piece, new wood for the old frame,
Is it the same ship at the dock if it don't carry the same name?
If I wipe down the bar where you carved it, scrape away the stain,
Do I kill you all over? Is that what remains?

[Verse 1]
(sound of a call connecting, a single breath in)
Yo, it's Zola. Look… Behind The Sump, the alley air is thick,
Smells like yesterday's grease trap and the rain on cheap brick.
Saw your face on a poster peeling off a Pepco grid,
New suit, new teeth, new caucus that you're somehow in the midst of.
Remember splitting a half-smoke by the Howard Theatre sign?
You said, "We're wasps, Z. We protect the hive, what's yours is mine."
Now you're just a cicada shell I found left on the vine.
All that noise for one summer then you crawl back under the line.

[Chorus]
They take the rot out piece by piece, new wood for the old frame,
Is it the same ship at the dock if it don't carry the same name?
If I wipe down the bar where you carved it, scrape away the stain,
Do I kill you all over? Is that what remains?

[Verse 2]
My phone just buzzed, my manager sent the '86' text.
Guess some barfly got too loud about his last election bets.
It's Tuesday, 4 AM, I'm cleaning up another one of your messes,
Just a different species of roach with a K Street home address.
Heard you bought your mom a house out past the Beltway hum,
That's good, for real. I ain't jawsin', my whole damn jaw is numb.
But the kid who took a bottle for me on Benning Road, where did that dude become?
Just another rotted plank they pried loose 'til the whole damn thing was done.

[Outro]
...Anyway. Just delete this.
(sound of a sharp hang-up, followed by a dial tone)