Okkervil River Song

Down by Okkervil River slow silent thick and black, I stared into the water, and the water it stared back. The night it fell from tangles of the branches on the shore as it had on Okkervil River before. Down by Okkervil River's cigarettes and rusty tires, we made ourselves an altar, we lit our nightly fires. And the smoke lay thick and smothered all the skunk cabbage and vines where Gods were born and Gods lay down to die. With your hand inside my pocket, you whispered in my ear "We have come from ugliness to find some refuge here. With this bracken for a blanket, where these limbs stick out like bones, we have found a place where we can be alone." And I tried to tell you, as I kissed your hard dry lips,

all the things I dreamed

about. I touched your bone white hips. Far away our

parents slept in while we

watched our fire burn. They

dreamed of nothing and got nothing in return. And the

water slipped on slowly past our bodies in the weeds,

pulling plastic wrap and

razors on its current through

the reeds. Then I woke up one

cold morning, felt an absence

at my back, and I searched and stared but only the river stared