She is standing just outside a doorway
She is watching the old road to the sea
She is closing her eyes
She is saying goodbye in a language that she doesn’t speak
She is reaching, it is dawn, it is dusk it is pitch black
It is raining still from a cloudless sky
The stars burn bright in the afternoon blue
The moon’s waxing and waning, it’s full, it is new
it is falling… She is calling out a name
A chorus in her throat a thousand sounds overlapping
Every name she has lost along the way
Every face she will lose in the future she is standing
alone, with a child, with an in-law with a village
in a desert, in a suburb, in the snow
Alone once again, they are coming to take her boy away,
so away he’ll go

I just want to love you right
I just want to love you right
I just want to love you right
Why’s that such a crime?

She is standing just inside a doorway
She can still taste the salt in his name
She is African, Asian, American, European
although her hands are always the same
She is praying to gods and angels that flicker
in and out of existence, to spirits that laugh
How many wars has it been? How many prayers
like paper boats drifting to never come back?
They have taken him to fight
in forests in deserts in oceans in jungles in towns
With a spear, with a bow, with a sword, with a rifle
with a computer, it’s the future that’s mowing him down
The past is chewing on his leg; the present is licking it’s lips
She is thinking of him all alone
Once again, they are coming to take her boy away,
so away he’ll go

It ain’t going to work out,
yeah I’ve known it from the start
Just ‘cause you know it with your mind,
don’t mean you know it with your heart
And I just want to love you right
I just want to love you right
I just want to love you right
Why’s that such a crime?

She is standing away from the door now
He is sleeping in a back room, heavy
They are creeping up the road like daylight
just as they have a million times already
But she remembers her trembling hands now
She remembers his million faces
So many sons, extinguished for what?
They are serving for words they have never tasted
She is holding her heart in her hands now
Each chamber is full, it is cold
She remembers this story but knows
that it changes a little every time it is told
She remembers the knock on the door
The morning is dead, its ashes are scattered
Once again, they are coming to take her boy away,
so she cocks the hammer

I just want to love you right
I just want to love you right
I just want to love you right
Why’s that such a crime?