Rafters

Ceiling tiles are falling down

Selling secrets between now

And defeated pasts on last defense

The walls can't keep the warm in here

This busted house of cans of beer

Aluminum, some plaster and some fear

There are her bones, there are the fossils

There near the sewer pipe

There, between floors, between wars

There on a two-by-four

Harmonic notes still humming from her lyre

Just set my little soul on fire

In the shape of my latest sin

In the wake of soon moving on

Though this house is crumbling down

She's whispering her last words now

Did he love her there on the floor?

When he pressed his mark in that knotted board

Pressed an oath in that knotted board

Just two names, one shape, tangled minor chords

A heart around their sweet accord

Wrapped around their love and stored

The first day, got away, then so many more

A decade past, and then a score

And now winter falls, decay and dark creating art

Showing the world just where you really are

Oh, sweet Louise

Since eighty-three

While paneling and pyramids fall down

Oh, sweet Louise

Now I believe

In rafters in this beat-up, blue-neck town

In turning tides, in me

In hidden vows

There are her bones, there are the fossils

There near the sewer pipe

There are her bones, there are the fossils

Unfinished song I complete

There on his throne, here in their castle

My Pygmalion ivory

Here on my own, like this home

The landlord collects his fee

I'm growing old, I'm so alone

These ceiling tiles are falling down

I'm seeing what I've got to see

Oh, sweet Louise

Since eighty-three

While paneling and pyramids fall down

Oh, sweet Louise

Now I believe

In rafters in a rugged Worcester town

In turning tides, in me

In hidden vows