She Stayed As Steam - Kevin Devine

Rivers rushing at your teeth

Cresting waves through wading valleys

Flooded language tributaries

Collect and cover over me

Tensing jaw and cork screw eyelids

As if you couldn’t bare to see

All that water pouring from you

Collecting clouds inside the ballroom

Over people who don’t know you

But darling i do

You trance yourself back from the city

Blood not moving to your feet

Your foot falls tentative and muffled

Automatic listless shuffle

Your sidewalk scatter brain cry uncle

You paint yourself back in your corner

And look for her on your tv

It’s friday night and i am hungry

For a hand, a mouth, a body

A love i wouldn’t have to carry

A stitch in my mouth

And i’m untying now

A concrete canal

In a bomb border town

An echo in the rafters

Reminding you there was a sound

But you killed her in waves

So she stayed as steam

To hiss at you now

You killed her in waves

But that’s not today

So you breathe through your mouth

Try to calm yourself down

And keep what you found

And shout it out loud

She can hover and hurt

Or dissolve to dirt

Some prayer in your mouth

Or she might stay as steam

So get to the beams

To figure her out