There’s a light low tide and my brother and I
Are tracing your steps to the sun
In the drops and grains, you are singing the names of the creatures that run when we run

By your hand, as planned
The stars form the shape of a man
But time brakes hard and the stars, like pearls, come undone

You name the animals
You name the animals
You name the animals
You name the animals

There’s a great dark warmth where the trees residе
And we stand together and watch it risе
In the dust you are naming the ways that the sage can be known

There’s a light, and a fault –
It’s not mine and it won’t be resolved
We traverse the drought earth and learn what it grows

You name the animals
You name the animals
You name the animals
You name the animals
Then you do what men do
And complain that your family left you
And you try to sever the ties that bind all of us who remain

And I say what I say
So you claim I imagined it anyway
So no way can be paved from that masked and hungry place

You name the animals
You name the animals
You name the animals
You name the animals

You are a father who bothered to wander
Around and decide he would leave
Who saw me as the daughter who slaughtered the city that my father named after me

I don’t think, I don’t cry
I sign “love” at the end of my lines
Though it’s spent, and I haven’t meant it in a long time

You name the animals
You name the animals
You name the animals
You name the animals
Stop sending me photos of my hometown!
I didn’t like it then, and I don’t like you now
I shuffle my days like a pack of cards
Don’t tell me how happy you think you are

You name the animals
You name the animals
You name the animals
You name the animals