"Pale Green Things"

Got up before dawn Went down to the racetrack
Riding with the windows down
Shortly after your first heart attack
You parked behind the paddock
Cracking asphalt underfoot
Coming up through the cracks
Pale green things
Pale green things

You watched the horses run their workouts
You held your stopwatch in your left hand
And a Racing Form beneath your arm
Casting your gaze way out to no man's land
Sometimes I'll meet you out there
Lonely and frightened
Flicking my tongue out at the wet leaves
Pale green things
Pale green things

My sister called at 3 AM
Just last December
She told you how you'd died at last, at last
That morning at the racetrack
Was one thing that I remembered
I turned it over in my mind
Like a living Chinese finger trap
Seaweed in Indiana sawgrass
Pale green things
Pale green things 

-The Mountain Goats