Tallow Bloom

[Verse 1]
(sound of a phone ringing once, then the beep of an answering machine)
...Hey. It's Nina. I know the hour.
The clock on the stove says three forty-seven, sour and still.
My whole porch ceiling's that particular haint blue,
a color meant to fool a restless spirit. It isn't working.
So I'm thinking of grafting my quiet onto you.

[Pre-Chorus]
This is a fool's errand, this late-night confession.
A seed dropped in a fallow field, a question.

[Chorus]
So is this a covenant, or just a borrowed key?
Are you the harvest, or the history in me?
Tell me true.
'Fore this root grows through.

[Verse 2]
The window's open, and the air's too thick to breathe alone.
It tastes like tallow, salt marsh, and old bone.
I remember you watching me from the back of the room.
You said, "Your fingers talk of more than just this coming bloom."

[Chorus]
So is this a covenant, or just a borrowed key?
Are you the harvest, or the history in me?
Tell me true.
'Fore this root grows through.

[Bridge]
A man once sold my grandmother's bones for a line in a book.
He called it preservation. I still see the look
on my mother's face. A quiet kind of thunder.
So forgive me if I have to ask, if I have to wonder...

[Outro]
(long pause, sound of her breathing)
Okay. Call me when you wake the city up.
(click)