Not Abel

(album: Bark Your Head Off, Dog - 2018)

The whole town lined up outside the tent
What those kids thought they saw
Do you really want to remember this?
Today, think of all the alien shots in the dark
That at one time, all at once, coexisted

I mean aside from all the burning
Hurry by the shanties beside the road

Sunset on a cart
Pulled home by a white horse
Conscience of the husband was righteous and coarse
There must be a limit
If we only circle around
There's no hurry in reaching it

Shirt bloodstained
And yet it was not Abel but Cain who got to hear
The voice that for so long had been a stranger
Not one word of all the time they spent growing up brothers
Even love, yes, even love, yes, even lose
Something to lose

What if the details there were suddenly shared?
Tender moments siblings keep secret

Sunset on a time when no words could be spared
Unknowing mother rocks soft in her chair
There must be a limit
This has happened
This will happen
This is happening

Voice on the radio again
Strange to be shaped by such strange men
It's the hottest summer again
Strange to be shaped by such strange men
But where will you go? Where?

Where, where?
When you asked me that question it sounded like a joke
A rubber hand extended to shake
Outside my kitchen the sound of fists on the door
In the early morning light
A death so small and sentimental
Daddy giving the middle finger to the Kodak lens
When I saw her face she smiled
"I don't know why I saved it all this time"