Her nametag says Elena, but she moves just like you used to. When I order a drink our eyes meet and the walls recede into—
Fog so thick I can hardly see. Stumbling through the woods to the sound of your feet, kicking up leaves. I find you on your knees staring at a nest of dead copperheads under a tree-split boulder. I say, “When you’re running like a maniac, you’ll get there fast but the wind whips colder.” You grab the cross hanging at your chest. Your other hand, soft, on the back of my head as I’m catching my breath. You lick my ear then nearly bite it off. “Save preaching for the flock.” you say, then smile at the rocks and proclaim, “Here’s the spot where God said to me ‘Once love has a face, child, you can never be free.’”
Sweetheart, nothing can save you from the face of my love.
Elena’s hand mimes that she’s waiting for me. Stick-and-poke lines etch the tide on her sleeve. And birthmarks off the coast of her sea change shape and fade near the nape of her neck, the faint pink of a dead reef. But her eyes shine with a violet hue I’ve only seen in you. The same pious smile too. My whiskey sweats on Elena’s tray as I try to count the years or the decades I’ve aged since I drove away. Like a snake that bites after death, some faces are ageless, in stasis, till one night they inject shame into an older you. What’s left to do? But project on the ice as it melts in your drink.
Sweetheart, nothing can save you from the face of my love.
Watch her shimmy though acrylic beads. Her hips are swaying, but I see yours swing.
My broken body starts to feel like it’s seventeen. I hear you singing,
The highway threads a line through your past. Do you see me every time you look back? Bright red in the sunrise crying, wondering where you might be driving. In the fading crowds of fools you lie to do traces of my face still find you?
Wait for me. I’ll jump up the truck and speed till I’m between your knees in the Technicolor gleam of the Starlight Drive-in screens. Then I’ll get that jealous priest who ran me out, baby. He’s just a fraud like me. And when my knuckles start to bleed, you’ll kiss ‘em clean. Yeah, but that’s a fantasy. ‘Cause I’m just ashes waiting to be scattered. Any place is fine. Don’t really matter.
Other lyrics by BAMBARA:
Because You Asked
About a decade back, you asked, if I died would I haunt your room. I said, “Go to sleep. You won’t bury me anytime soon. I’ve tried for years. I think it’s clear that I’m …
Dive Shrine
He sits slumped on the barstool. Lips twitch as he fights to hold a grin. Aiming sighs at designs on the bottles. The owner’s dogs, when they whine, kind of look like …
Elena's Dream
There’s this girl wandering in the woods, following a voice. It leads her to a snake nest. Copperheads, I think. She’s seen these same ones before, when it was cold out …
Face Of Love
Her nametag says Elena, but she moves just like you used to. When I order a drink our eyes meet and the walls recede into— Fog so thick I can hardly see. Stumbling …
Hiss
Can’t recall the time of year, but the cars I could hear seemed to slowly steer like they were driving on frozen roads. Couldn’t say the time of day, but the light …