Tapdance - Kevin Devine

You get back here

You do it slowly

Do it calm, now

Don’t be so angry

I got something

I’ve been chasing

Every day since I started walking

It just sits there

In the distance

It always flirts with the tips of my fingers

You thought that

You could love it

Until it touched you

And now you just wanna stop it

Well I’m sorry

It’s not likely

It was here when you got here

And it’ll be here when you’re not here no more

And then some days

I get lucky

I can focus and things are less shaky

And I scrape you

Off the pale moon

And I slip you

Into soft shoes

And you tapdance

To a jazz band

On a cruise ship

Near an island

And your hair’s up

You wear a short dress

And a wide smile

You’re movements are careless

It’s a daydream

I keep having

To make the clocks move

While I’m working

Or a bad joke

I can’t sit through

And I smile because I feel like I have to

But if you’d look under the table

You’d see I’m playing with my knife

I’m slicing stripes into my kneecaps

And I’m struggling just to come off polite

«We could be a snapshot framed and hung like a portrait»

What if that’s true and I’m the only one who knows it?