High Water Mark

[Verse 1]
The thermostat on your parents' wall
Reads seventy-two in late November's squall.
A stack of magazines I've never heard of,
piled up beside the heavy door.
You say 'it's nothing, just the way it's set,'
But my Bremerton jacket is still soaking wet.

[Chorus]
You move through this house like a current, so easy,
and I am just learning to breathe underwater,
in the quiet deep.

[Verse 2]
The guest soap is shaped like a seashell,
it smells of a salt I can't place.
The silence here has a different weight,
a pressure that holds you in space.
Your father asks, "So, you were in the Navy?"
And grips my hand like I'm something he's saving.

[Chorus]
You move through this house like a current, so easy,
and I am just learning to breathe underwater,
in the quiet deep.

[Bridge]
I'm charting the shoals in your mother's good silver,
the glint off a fork is a terrible sign.
A harbor light flicker from the TV's cold glimmer—
is that your reflection or is it mine?

[Outro]
The tide's coming in.
The tide's coming in.