Cardboard town
You look just like I remember
Just like I expected
Nothing's changed
Everything's changed
The magic's gone.

The magic music
doesn't hum
through the desert
and the lonesome
desert ghosts
aren't wandering
over the big dirt hills
with their ghost burros.

The hill I sat on
the little rock I cried on
the night John Lennon died
when the little desert gnomes
cried with me
That hill is still there
The rock is still sticky
with my ancient tears.

The men at the bar
are the same men
telling the same jokes.
Are they older?
No, only I am older.
They're only mannequins
Propped there
for eternity.

I leave
but the maple syrup air
is sticky as the rock
gluing me here.

You're just a bunch of cardboard cutouts
I shouted
and they all fell down.

The dust devil
dances around the
cardboard town
and winks at me.