December Fifth

[Verse 1]
(Sound of a phone ringing once, then voicemail tone)
Hey. It's me. The SS Mont-Blanc is sitting low out in the Narrows.
Looks overloaded from the stern, like a badly cantilevered shelf.
Listening to the foghorns cut against the grain of the traffic.
I just saw a stevedore drop a crate, and the sound simply vanished.

[Chorus]
And I don't know why I'm calling you about the joinery of the harbour,
Or the shear stress that's holding back tomorrow.
It's just a Wednesday, holding its breath.
It's just the quiet before the fracture.

[Verse 2]
Remember you said, "the whole city's a beautiful mistake"?
Standing right on this pier, the wind burning our faces cold.
The air smells like spruce and low tide, just like you said it would.
This new coat doesn't have the ghost mark of your head on the shoulder.

[Chorus]
And I don't know why I'm calling you about the joinery of the harbour,
Or the shear stress that's holding back tomorrow.
It's just a Wednesday, holding its breath.
It's just the quiet before the fracture.

[Bridge]
Anyway. I guess I thought you'd want to see the light.
How it catches the ice on the mooring lines...
It's almost beautiful.
(a pause, an intake of breath)

[Outro]
Okay. I should let you go.
(Sound of a click as the call ends)