Sinner in the Sea

There’s a piano playing on the ocean floor between Havana and New Orleans

Drummin’ a requiem for the dead and the souls hanging on every poet’s prayer

Running to the rock, running to the sea

Prayin’ to the Lord, please shelter me

But the ground keeps shaking

Water is boiling on fire

Blood pulsing through their veins

Like the waves crashing on the Malecón wall

Clocks stopping at twelve on the eve of a forgotten war

Luis drivin’ a ‘59 making it half way across the Gulf

Stranded on the rock, stranded on the sea

There’s a wall in the ocean between you and me

Dreams of reaching dry land

Talking to the fortune teller

Prisoners pounding the jail

Like the waves crashing on the Malecón wall

Someone lost an eye

Someone lost the truth

Trying to save face

‘Neath the eyes of the Virgin el Cobre

Shout me a line sister

Shout me a line sister

Oh I see your hands in the air

See you drowning on the other side

Chief’s in the parish and the drummers in the square

Walkin’ across the fire, walkin’ across the waves

Sinner on the rock, sinner in the sea

There’s a sunken bridge ‘tween you and me

Running past the embassy gates

And the Santería shrine

Blood pulsing through their veins

Like the waves they remember crashing on the Malecón wall