Waiting for the Punch

Most nights the room is brighter

And nothing he don’t wanna think gets through

Like her odds of remission

He turns the television

To all-time greatest wrestling moves

Everybody they know acts like family at first

But slowly the list wears down

Her friends from New York

Don’t call much anymore

There’s no need for consolation anyhow

They used to sit out on the driveway

Guessing the names of every dog in town

She would always laugh

Even when his jokes fell flat

What he’d give to hear her fake it now

Sometimes it’s half an hour

To draw out just one word

And they’ve tried every treatment but her body lives in hurt

Love incompleted will make your spirit rot

If you fold it into something it is not

And nobody gets it right

No one gets it right

But once in your life

You did

It don’t help him to rush through their past

It seemed like nothing what her mother’s mother had

But memory’s like a weather vane

It points you to where it’s bad

She’s sitting in the front row when their daughter graduates

It’s not how they imagined

But beautiful all the same

She knows the end is coming but it’s not gonna be today

And when it does she’ll give herself away

Shoes all muddy at the bottom of the stairs

He just got back from a walk they’d take a couple times each year

Above the old ranch houses

In the open autumn air

It’s easier to bring her back up there

And nobody gets it right

No one gets it right

But once in your life

You did