This Much Counts as One · Track 39 · middle

Fortnight

Fortnight — 14 days — fourteen nights. Volume: V. TIME. ANGLE: Two weeks, still alive in one language and gone in another. A separation with an end date. Sing the person or animal inside the unit, never the definition.

No audio yet — generation pending.

Lyrics

The brass zipper on the offshore bag
Sticks right at the curve.
You pull it shut. You turn and leave.

Somebody in an office drew a grid
And said this is the length a man can work
Before his hands forget the shape of his own hearth.
They sliced the year into these heavy, even blocks.
I watch the headlights sweep the gravel in the dark.
There are exactly 14 coffee filters in the sleeve.
I counted them on Tuesday

It’s an old word for an old way of waiting,
Half a moon from the shadow to the bright.
They needed a measure for the wage and the water,
A box to put the absence in, and pull the corners tight.
It’s a long time to hold your breath.
It’s a short time to build a life.

The smell of salt and diesel takes 3 days
To fade out of the coats hung in the hall.
After that, the body takes the rhythm on its own,
I don't look at the paper hanging on the wall.
The spine just knows when the ship is turning back,
The hollow in the chest begins to rise.
We trade the open water for a size.

It’s an old word for an old way of waiting,
Half a moon from the shadow to the bright.
They needed a measure for the wage and the water,
A box to put the absence in, and pull the corners tight.
It’s a long time to hold your breath.
It’s a short time to build a life.

They lost the word across the ocean,
Traded a fortnight for something colder, something flat.
But we keep it in the mouth because it’s heavy.
Because it sounds like the dropping of a latch.
An agreement made with the tide.

The calendar is just a paper net.
We try to catch the water in the mesh.
The moon is getting heavy on the sill.
You'll be standing in the driveway.
You'll be standing in the driveway, and the zipper will stick again.