Brooklyn Baby

She's going to be a Brooklyn Baby
Born on the bridge
When the century turned

Learned how to speak
Underneath Fisher's Creek
And the first thing she felt
Was what it's like to get burned

She's going to walk
About everywhere

Trust nobody
Tell nobody
Teach nobody

Tell her don't talk to strangers
But she says--

'Aren't we all the same?
Don't we all have to go across
The Brooklyn Bridge
To get somewhere
Better than here?'

I could never teach her
What a stranger was
Because she'd have made friends
With whoever it was
Before I noticed it happening

She's not scared of snakes
She's not scared of mice
She's not scared of spiders
Heights, men, or night

I make her wear coats
And she loses them

I make her wear dresses
And she chooses
To let thorns rip through them
So that she comes home
Looking like a farm girl
Who got lost in the city

'Don't think you're better than anyone else'
--I tell her

'What about different,' she says
'Can't I at least be different from anyone else?'

And I guess I can't say 'No' to that

When she grows up
She goes across the bridge
And she doesn't come back
Until it's time to bury me alive

Packs up my things
And sends me where they'll feed me
Tapioca pudding
And wheat all the time

She'll ask me if I hate it
And when I say I do
She'll say it's that or cross the river
Cross the bridge
So I say
Leave me where I am

'Don't forget that you're a Brooklyn Baby'
--I tell her

And she says--

'I never forget'

She says--

'You never let me forget'

Then she goes back where she came from
And I slowly die
Facing the water
Outside my window

Wondering if I had her on one side or the other
Would it have made a difference?

Would she have been one thing or the other?

And would she have taken me with her
Across the river
Across the bridge

A bridge only she
Could ever cross

Without turning around

Without turning back