Shake

Lyrics

My father’s coat smelled of lanolin and cold,
March mornings freezing in the lambing fold.
You hold the glass bottle, you watch the back end,
A frantic vibration when the milk hits the bend.
My wrist knows the tempo before the mind does,
A flicker of muscle, a blur of white fuzz.
It meant you were keeping the tiny thing fed.
It meant that the winter had not left it dead.

But out in the desert, we're cutting up the light,
Slicing the second into something we can write.
We need a word for the sliver of the spark,
The gap between the trigger and the lifting of the dark.
They asked for a measure, I gave them the farm.
Just a shake of the tail.
Just a shake of the tail before the alarm.

There is beryllium dust on the cuffs of my sleeves.
We are building a sun that no one believes.
The boys from the Ivy League wanted a Greek name,
For the birth of the fire, the flash of the frame.
But I drew a line with a yellow grease pencil,
Right on the curve of the glass of the screen.
A fraction so small it is barely a thought,
The space where the chain and the tether are caught.

And out in the desert, we're cutting up the light,
Slicing the second into something we can write.
We need a word for the sliver of the spark,
The gap between the trigger and the lifting of the dark.
They asked for a measure, I gave them the farm.
Just a shake of the tail.
Just a shake of the tail before the alarm.

We needed a bracket to hold the unseen.
To trap the reaction inside the machine.
It is terrible, taking the softest thing known,
And using its rhythm to shatter the stone.
But you measure the ruin with whatever you have.

One shake.
The flash on the mesa.
Two shakes.
The milk in the bottle.
The math is correct.
We borrowed the lamb.
We borrowed the lamb.