The Left Side - Shearwater

A pretty one-eyed girl

From the state of Maine

Can’t see the church:

It’s on the left side of her brain

But it’s clothed in browning leaves

And it wants to take her in

And there’s a Parson’s robe inside

That wants to feel her skin

And the sleeves of warm, black cloth

Are hungry for her wrists

And the first page of the Holy Book

Is hungry for her kiss

And she’ll go home

On the right hand of the interstate

And the church upon

The hill it will sit in crumbling leaves

And it will wait for her

Wait to be together

But she won’t want it, ever

It’s like a dream I had:

This girl I went to see

(And I can’t sing her name

She might be listening to me)

In a room of missing tiles

We felt ourselves entwine

And she bit my tongue

And shouted as I crawled into her mind

It was full of singing mouths

And apples in the air

A soft, warm little room

That was surrounded by her hair

And, alone, when we awoke

We stretched our legs and spoke

To the people we were sleeping with

In voices not our own

In the cool of our beds

With the words just dissipating

In the open air ahead

And this other world just waiting

Until we’re dead