Emily Sue, Cont'd - Arms

Wild pine, the moon is so high,

I see where you’re going and your eyes ghost,

Wild-eyed, gravel and smoke,

return every question in the same tone.

There’s a state line, out in those pines

buried in frozen ground;

we’ve chosen our sides,

now we can’t turn it around.

Chain Emily to the stake,

her family’s worried, she’s terribly late.

And haze rolling across the lake…

If we go, who’s to know, dead by morning if we stay…

In time, the paper unfolds,

slipping it through another keyhole.

The slim hope, a fireproof rope, the kerosene off of your sweet nose.

It’s a steak knife, fit on my thigh,

Watching you flicker in real time.

Calling unkind, then we can turn it around.

Fates, give a warm soul a break,

Just give me a life, give you nothing but mine

and that’s how it will stay.

But hey, I’ve never been so afraid.

With this cold in my bones and a child engulfed in flames…