My legs were stickin' to a leather chair The heat from the streets Makin' waves in the air The police talk to your husband on the phone As they put out the fire on your neighbors burnt-up home I twirled the baton outside And noticed the look his daughter had When her dad pulled that Tacoma in the gravel drive They forced themselves inside And found the scattered piles of a Carolina murder suicide I'd seen him swing his wrapped-up hands at the bag in the garage And I'd heard him shooting bottles off the top of a wooden box Older brother ran away Took a bag to a bus stop late at night He was a squirrel-killing boy who picked at splinters with a pocket knife The house collapsed But the fire kept on burning at the scraps And I wondered if grief could break you in half When the gossip died And the ruins rotted away in the rain And the fruit flies went to sleep in the drain