Coyote Year

[Verse 1]
The Susquehanna’s frozen, a hard silver sheet.
January twenty-first, the taste of bitter sleet.
The headlamps of the late shift cut the treeline into bone,
A parliament of owls watching them go home.

[Pre-Chorus]
And the silence here has teeth tonight, you know?
A vixen slips across the salted road.
Her shadow is a rumor, quick and thin.
The television flickers on the blue light from within.
The whole town's holding its breath and holding it so deep...
like deer who feel the hunter in their sleep.

[Chorus]
We are the kings of nothing, for another night.
We won the dark. We drank the pale moonlight.

[Verse 2]
The PBR is sweating on the bar at Sharkey's place.
"Tomorrow," you said, "I swear I'll win that race."
A field mouse in the wall is scratching out a life,
Sharpening its hunger like a borrowed knife.

[Pre-Chorus]
And the silence here is listening, you know?
A black bear dreams of honey under snow.
Her breathing is a rhythm, slow and deep.
While we are counting heartbeats in our sleep.
The whole world's on a hairline in the glass...
This perfect stillness wasn't built to last.

[Chorus]
We are the kings of nothing, for another night.
We won the dark. We drank the pale moonlight.

[Bridge]
The river ice gives a shotgun CRACK! below…
The great horned owl sees everything we'll never know.

[Chorus]
We are the kings of nothing, for another night!
We won the dark! We drank the pale moonlight!

[Outro]
The vixen's gone.
The river's sleeping on.