Marietta
from: Flat Earth Diary
MARIETTA
Lyric by Krista Detor Music by Krista Detor & George Detor
Marietta drinks her coffee from a broken coffee cup
Always from the same cup and I am always falling in
Coffee drips onto the table from the broken cup
And I am undone in the sweet sticky rings
I am undone in the transient things
Light falls from the air on Marietta when she’s sleeping
Shrouds and thorns and crosses burning on the hill and I am dreaming
Marietta smiles on Sunday if I am very quiet.
She smiles at the Sunday paper, sometimes she smiles at me
And I might get up and walk across the room – but maybe I won’t
I won’t if I don’t,
and the sun’ll come up like the sun always does
Light falls from the air on Marietta when she’s sleeping
Shrouds and thorns and crosses burning on the hill and I am dreaming
I know of a sound unlike any other,
It’s hollow and ashen and whispers of sin
A sound in the night unlike any other
The brush of the flannel against her dry skin
And I will not leave this room or the spot on the mirror
Where I breathed a fog and it stayed there for years and years,
little xs and os and I watched myself sleeping and crying and dreaming
and I have tried, but Marietta and I won’t be leaving
Light falls from the air on Marietta when she’s weeping
Shrouds and thorns and crosses burning on the hill and I am dreaming
of Marietta in a church in New Orleans
I’m speaking of shapes and rattlesnakes and God’s own incongruity
Marietta with the pin-curled hair
It was only me who put her there
while we were sleeping.
She never felt my breathing
but my breathing, Marietta
is all that’s keeping me here
Lyric by Krista Detor Music by Krista Detor & George Detor
Marietta drinks her coffee from a broken coffee cup
Always from the same cup and I am always falling in
Coffee drips onto the table from the broken cup
And I am undone in the sweet sticky rings
I am undone in the transient things
Light falls from the air on Marietta when she’s sleeping
Shrouds and thorns and crosses burning on the hill and I am dreaming
Marietta smiles on Sunday if I am very quiet.
She smiles at the Sunday paper, sometimes she smiles at me
And I might get up and walk across the room – but maybe I won’t
I won’t if I don’t,
and the sun’ll come up like the sun always does
Light falls from the air on Marietta when she’s sleeping
Shrouds and thorns and crosses burning on the hill and I am dreaming
I know of a sound unlike any other,
It’s hollow and ashen and whispers of sin
A sound in the night unlike any other
The brush of the flannel against her dry skin
And I will not leave this room or the spot on the mirror
Where I breathed a fog and it stayed there for years and years,
little xs and os and I watched myself sleeping and crying and dreaming
and I have tried, but Marietta and I won’t be leaving
Light falls from the air on Marietta when she’s weeping
Shrouds and thorns and crosses burning on the hill and I am dreaming
of Marietta in a church in New Orleans
I’m speaking of shapes and rattlesnakes and God’s own incongruity
Marietta with the pin-curled hair
It was only me who put her there
while we were sleeping.
She never felt my breathing
but my breathing, Marietta
is all that’s keeping me here