I was workin' for the county
When I saw her standing there
With a ribcage like a washboard
And with briars in her hair
Alabama is a furnace
And the summer is a dog
She was naked in the creek bed
In the image of her god
On the Dia de los Muertos,
I was sitting in a bar
With tequila as my mistress,
When my thoughts all turned to dark
So I gave up heavy drinking
And stitched up my broken mouth
And I felt that old conviction,
So I started driving south
In the clay of Mason-Dixon,
In the absence of all snow
Where the button buck is rutting
For the white tail of the doe
She is toddling in the tall grass,
Just as timeless as the trees
Just as grungy as Seattle,
Just as holy as a priest
I was climbin' up to Babel,
She was tugging at my jeans
Said, "You can't ever get to heaven
If you don't know what heaven means!"
"It's not peeling like a paint job,
It's not brushed under the rug
No, it's much deeper beneath the floorboards,
In these trenches that we've dug."
With a prismatic halo
And emaciated legs
She took all my constitution
And faded back into the dregs
And as the sun set on the trailers
Of my past and future lives
The magnolias are pregnant!
The cicadas harmonize!