WORKING GIRLS (Schumann) She said she came from Portland Where the ashen skies and leaden ocean Left her like the local boys, baron of emotion As we talked we watched the raindrops running down the window The laundromat in Darlinghurst, like a fish shop from the past And her mother called her Mary After Mary Magdalene To deny her beauty, would have been the greatest sin There was a profile in the neon And a Kings Cross doorway lean To half an hour of tending someone elses tangled dream And there were lines of sailors Lines of speed Lines upon the footpath Where she stared, when things were quiet, As night deferred to dawn And the coke cups played red rover, in the breeze that scuttled through the streets Taxis left for greener fields While Sydney stretched and yawned And her mother called her Mary After Mary Magdalene There were virgins in the morning She had sisters in the pain And the wives would clutch their husbands As they passed her on the street Perhaps it was her honesty Perhaps they shared the shame Working streets and wedding rings Are sometimes much the same Tap dance with the buskers Near the subway Shouting blues songs They remembered from their teenage years of dreamtime radio And the years withdrew behind her eyes To let the little girl look out In simple childish innocence At drawings in the sand And her mother called her Mary After Mary Magdalene She had long dark hair and massage oil And a key to let you in And the lines upon her face Were maps of roads she'd travelled Line with people throwing stones 'Cause they didnt understand That half an hour of tenderness Perhaps they shared the shame because working streets and wedding rings Are sometimes much the same |