As It Has Always Been

You go on the boat when you're fifteen
Half the time you come back
Half the time you don't

We don't ask after the ones who don't come back
If we cry, we cry into our dishrags
And then we have another baby
And name it after the lost one
The one we're not getting back
And if the men see us crying
We get whacked for being soft

They don't want soft mothers
Raising their boys

So your skin gets tough
And your lips get dry
And you do your work harder
And count the days

One, two, three
Until your next kid
Turns fifteen

Then you gotta go on a boat
And get waved off
And everybody's happy
Because the only thing to do
Is pretend you don't know the odds
That you don't know how the sea is
About its hunger
About how much it needs
To stay so blue

After you're twenty-five, twenty-six
You're fine

The water has no need
For old men

It just wants boys
Still so fresh
They smell like their mama's apron

We don't tell you what to expect
Because we can't have scenes at the dock
Boys crying, holding on so tight
It takes every man in town
To get them on the boat

We used to try warnings
But warnings are no good anyway
When every time you hear a story
Which isn't often
It's a new kind of hell you'd never imagined

Storms, sharks
Water that comes right up
Like a cold, sweaty hand
And wraps itself
Around the boy
Who used to sing to you every night
Before he'd go to bed

And still you send them
And when they come back
And some come back
You don't even know them
Because now they're men

So you lose and you lose
And sometimes it's worse
Because people don't know
Just how much you're losing

How much of you
Stays away
No matter what
Comes back