The Bed Is a Boat

Lyrics

[Intro]
(a hull creaking, water against wood, very quiet)
It starts under the small of your back.

[Verse 1]
A long slow tilt, and then the long slow tilt returning,
and the mattress has a swell in it, and the room has a sea under it,
and you are perfectly still, and you have been still for an hour,
and you are nonetheless being carried on something moving.
It's not unpleasant. That's worth saying. It's not unpleasant at all.
Most people never mention it because it's rather nice.

[Chorus]
The bed is a boat. It is a boat tonight.
The floor has gone to water and the house is riding it,
and if you were on the sea today it will be worse, or better —
a whole day's motion given back to you for free.
The bed is a boat. Lie still and let it.
There is nowhere to be at this hour anyway.

[Verse 2]
Sailors know this one. Everybody who's been on a boat
comes home and sleeps on the boat for another night or two,
and climbers get the rock, and drivers get the road,
and swimmers get the wave, and skiers get the snow underfoot.
The body keeps the motion after the motion has stopped.
It takes a day or so to put it down.

[Chorus]

[Bridge]
There's a name for it at sea — mal de débarquement, the sickness
of the landing, of arriving, of the ground refusing to be ground.
For most it's a night. For a few it lasts much longer.
But tonight it's just a swell under an ordinary bed
in an ordinary room, on a street with no water on it.
Rocking. Gently rocking. Going nowhere at all.

[Chorus]

[Outro]
(the hull, once more, then still)
Still moving.
Still, and still moving.