What did you do the morning you found
Gills below your ears
And little fins under your arms
Was it relief you felt or fear

Where did you go
When air got too thin for your lungs

Water and salt filled your head
As you sloshed and flopped in your four-poster bed

In the air between the piling and the sea
There’s nothing human, nothing left of me
In the dark, cold water I fill my chest
Slip off my body, slip to the bottom and rest

What did it matter they never saw you again
You were at the back of the line
You were out of focus, nobody looked twice
No eyes could read you but mine

That night I drank all the gin
Ran aground on your porch, can I come in

Why did your lips change pink to blue
And why couldn’t I set a hook into you

In the air between the piling and the sea
I watched you become what you were meant to be
In the dark, cold water I look up at the sun
What a curse it is to walk and talk and run

In the air between the piling and the sea
There’s nothing human in me
In the dark, cold water I fill my chest
Slip off my body, slip to the bottom and rest

They’ll find me tomorrow
A closed casket to hide
The skin that couldn’t follow
Your fading white glide

So could you look to my gravestone at the top of the dune
And the man who couldn’t follow your cold water tune
Read my name in the rock by the light of the moon
The man who couldn’t follow your cold water tune