Warm, Wet Circles

On promenades where drunks propose to lonely arcade mannequins
Where ceremonies pause at the jeweler's shop display
Feigning casual silence in strained romantic interludes
Till they commit themselves to the muted journey home

And the pool player rests on another cue
Last night's hero picking up his dues
A honeymoon gambled on a ricochet
She's staring at the brochures at the holidays

Chalking up a name in your hometown
Standing all your mates to another round
Laughing at the world till the barman wipes away the warm wet circles
The warm wet circles

I saw teenage girls like gaudy moths
A classroom's shabby butterflies
Flirt in the glow of stranded telephone boxes
Planning white lace weddings from smeared hearts and token proclamations

Rolled from stolen lipsticks across the razored webs of glass
Sharing cigarettes with experience with her giggling jealous confidantes
She faithfully traces his name with quick bitten fingernails
Through the tears of condensation that'll cry through the night

As the glancing headlights of the last bus kiss adolescence goodbye
In a warm wet circle
Like a mothers kiss on your first broken heart, a warm wet circle
Like a bullet hole in Central Park, a warm wet circle
And I'll always surrender to the warm wet circles

She nervously undressed in the dancing beams of the Fidra lighthouse
Giving it all away before it's too late
She'll let a lovers tongue move in a warm wet circle
Giving it all away and showing no shame

She'll take a mother's kiss on her first broken heart a warm wet circle
She'll realise that she played her part in a warm wet circle

It was a wedding ring
Destined to be found in a cheap hotel
Lost in a kitchen sink or thrown in a wishing well

Marillion, Clutching at Straws, 1987