The Wound That Never Heals - Jim White

Long about an hour before sunrise

She drags his body down to the edge of the swollen river

Wrapped in a red velvet curtain

Stolen from the movie theater where she works

Quiet as a whisper, under the stanchions of a washed-out bridge she cuts him

loose…

And watches as the flood waters spin him around once, then carry him away

Then she removes the golden ring upon her finger… and she throws it in

And I wonder;

Baby why don’t you cry?

Baby why don’t you… Baby why don’t you

cry?

And I wonder;

Baby why don’t you cry?

Baby why don’t you… Baby why don’t you

cry?

Three days later in a bar in southern Mississippi she meets a man by the name

of Charles Lee

She introduces herself to him as «Lee Charles» «What a coincidence.»

he says…

And one week later they are married

He wakes up one night six months down the line to find her staring at him in

the oddest way

When he says, «Honey, what’s wrong?»

she says, «Oh nothing dear…

except that tears are

A stupid trick of God.»

And by the time they find his body six weeks later… Well hell,

she’s a thousand miles away

And I wonder;

Baby why don’t you cry?

Baby why don’t you… Baby why don’t you

cry?

And I wonder;

Baby why don’t you cry?

Baby why don’t you… Baby why don’t you

cry?

She runs from devils.

She runs from angels

She runs from the ghost of her father and five different uncles

Blinded by their memory, seared by their pain, she’d like to kill 'em all…

then kill 'em all again

She don’t think much about what she’s done or the funny feelings that she feels

No, she don’t

To her it’s just a condition she picked up as a child… a little thing she

calls

«the wound that never heals», she calls it, «the wound that never heals»

And I wonder;

Baby why don’t you cry?

Baby why don’t you…

Baby why don’t you cry?