A Woman Oversees (Commentary)

One time I went overseas

With a woman I know too deep

I live and breathe to hold her in

I love to hear her speak

We went to people's parties

And we haunted her old hometown

We rambled into restaurants

Tracking her old friends down

They all knew the magic number

The weather, the kids, TV

But this is where she pulls the strings

And slips into someone's grief

She's all tarot cards and gypsy moves

She's on fire with listening

No one sees it coming, no

The canary doesn't sing (sing, sing, sing)

She doesn't sing

For a woman oversees (sees)

A woman oversees

I feel for them and not because

Of what they're going through

I'm sure they used to try and reach

Inside an empty room

But she doesn't make it easy (no)

She hides behind her hair (hair)

She asks too many questions

And she cuts you off with care

She reaches deep inside you like an open cookie jar

And not because you're interesting

But to mind your broken heart

For borrowed pain to hide behind

Divorce, disdain, disease

And it ain't like she don't have her own

But hers is hers to keep

It's hers to keep

For a woman oversees (a woman oversees)

And in a chair sat right beside the puppeteer sits me

Recognizing maybe that I've said too many things

I've fallen prey to conversate, I've spoken her to sleep

Even an eviction

Would be a mercy in that place

Wordlessness is cruel and I can't wipe it off my face

I know I need compassion, Lord

I'm sure she needs it too

She won't even make excuses

That would all be too much truth

It's too much truth

A woman oversees

When you're this far north of forty

The growing's up to you

Even if you grow away from me