1: If the couch is there

2: If the couch is not

1: Collapse elsewhere

2: If your heart is collapsible

1: I give you permission

2: Comin’ down now

4: To disappear

3: To the low lands

1: Where the ancestors

4: If we can call them ancestors

1: Once told us

2: Look

3: Watch and

1: If you want to know

2 &3:    The earth

4: What we were

5: Just

1: Shut up

ALL: And listen

They all listen.

The performers take their time with the next eight lines.

1: Been

2: Been there

1: I was there

3: I’ve been there

1: I hear you

3: I’ve been there

1: And I hear you

5: Listen

They all listen.

4: The shape of this movement

3: Is motion

4: The weight of the world

3: Is water

4: And revealed in the water

3: Is movement

1: And the quiet you call dawn

4: And the roar you call water

2: Water comin’ down comin’ down now

3: The boy you called young

5: I was ten then and the water

4: You called Niagara Falls

3: And you were four times my age

2: And the roar

5: How she held me

2: The mist of years

3: The things that we were

5: Holding my weight

3: And the wind stripped us bare

2: My young ten mind

3: And chastened my years

2: And Marilyn Monroe

3: And the long drive home

2: Soft rock and the back seat

3: And the secrets you’d keep

2: And not keep

3: And not but by the mercy of God

4: The summer

3: The winter

4: The world

3: We made a pact

4: That if I fell

3: You would catch me

4: That if I fell

5: And vice versa

3: Your bedside

2: The sheets

3: The corner

2: The white

5: Your face

4: And vice versa

2: The summer

3: The fall

4: And vice versa

5: This is the corrective

1: Come

4: Come home

1 & 2:    She said

4: Come home and stay

3: Fucking hell

2: For a while

1: She said

4: Come home and I said

1: I’m in the city

2: For a while

4: But no there was no

3: Time

5: It turned out

1: She said

3: How am I supposed to accommodate that?

4: Come

1: Before it turned

5: And stay a while

1: And I said thanks

4: But no

2: But

1: But how could I know

5: At the time

1: At the time on

4: Wednesday there were five things to do

1: Call the bank

3: Call it off

4: Call home

1: Wherever that was

2: Wherever you were

5: In the world

3: The smell of gasoline

5: Was turquoise

1: And then

2: Collapse

3: You

2: Collapsed

1: And I –

4: I distinctly recall

3: The phone call

2: Come home

1: In the dark

4: Dark dark

3: On the couch

1: Dark and

2: Dry

4: In the dark

2: Dry cough

1: On the couch

5: How I found her

4: Orange peels

1: And tissue

3: Orange peels

5: A glass

1: And a glass of water

3: Water is

2: The giver

1: Wash your body

Clean and raw

Skin in the tub

Hair in the drain

Everything drained

All of you drained

5: In the tub

1: Body clean and slip

5: Slip and hit

1: Your head catch

4: Shit

5: Your body as it slips

1: A squeak and let slip a squeal

4: And split

3: The head

1: Small split the crack

5: The tiles your head

1: The blood in the tub

5: The drain

2: The hot