Bolcom: Cabaret Songs: The Total Stranger in the Garden

Sitting across the table

In the garden of our garden apartment

I stared at the paper my husband was reading

And I said to him

"You're a stranger, a total stranger

Always have been, always will be

Sitting there, hiding there

Behind that printed mask

Stop reading, stop reading me out of house and home

Must I ask, must I ask

Till my mouth fills up with foam

You total stranger, you stranger you."

Then he lowered the paper

And I saw it was not my husband

But a total stranger

A total stranger who said to me

"I am a kind of hobo of space

Trying to find a mask to erase

The mask behind

The mask behind

The mask behind the face."