Crossbow

Lyrics

I am not the weeping wood of the yew.
I do not ask you to ruin your shoulders.

The archer grew a crooked spine to pull his string.
He had to hold his breath, he had to fight the heavy wood.
I am a mechanism. I just require a crank.
A farmer in the dirt can spill a generation's blood.
I leveled out the field, I made the armor flat.
But that is not the thing I tremble at.

My fear is what I hold for you.
I take the shaking from your hands, I take the heavy lifting too.
You do not have to feel the pull, you do not have to sweat.
I keep the violence locked and cold until the trap is set.
I made it too easy to wait.

In the East they filled my hopper with a dozen darts,
a lever pushed in rhythm to clear the narrow pass.
In Genoa they wound me with a wheel and an iron hook.
Your finger rests upon the trigger, cold as winter glass.
The weapon maps onto the nerve before the thought is crossed,
the mind decides the target and the hand forgets the cost.

My fear is what I hold for you.
I take the shaking from your hands, I take the heavy lifting too.
You do not have to feel the pull, you do not have to sweat.
I keep the violence locked and cold until the trap is set.
I made it too easy to wait.

Seven hundred and forty pounds of tension.
Resting on a rolling nut of antler and of brass.
You can sit behind the rampart, you can eat your daily bread,
while I hold the hanging murder in my breath.
You don't have to be angry. 
You only have to nudge the sear.

I took the passion from the string.
I made a ledger of the thing.
Just a lever. Just a latch.
You never had to feel it catch.
You never had to feel the strain.