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Shallows

by Joy

/
1.
Distortion 00:49
There’s a nick in the ribbon In the middle of my favorite song And it catches, it warbles, it stutters there Stuck like an awkward smile in an old photograph Now the car is filling With the far-off thunder of our thinking The clang and the clamor Of a thousand weird transmissions distorting And somewhere in the static there is sweetness And somehow we keep driving
2.
Oh, Emily 02:00
Lightly, lanky The wires in her eyes Are the wires in your eyes There’s a wire for everything A wire for everything Carry the code Make it go Make it feel to find its way out of you
3.
Big Valley 03:38
Eyeballs on the big valley Crown up on the perch Birds up high and some below Glass of beer was draining slow Belly against mine Sleep with sunken roots Black and dreamless besides And sad with wondering She was small under the trees And fields of floating seeds I was microscopic then A molecule of falling skin
4.
We oughtn’t be Less than three Oh I know Branching bloodstreams Stream free Oh I know A body A blueprint Adrift in me now Somewhere in all this waiting Tides of seas Gravities Pull differently Oh I know New currents convey Us away Oh I know
5.
Cracks in the sidewalk make A likeness of the shape A curve The angle of a shadow across the way Sockets filled with night Moonbeams and streetlamp light A moss patch The way the leaves have landed one by one
6.
The stars over Somerville Keep their eye on me and my baby Passing from headlight to headlight Two pieces of background Shaking off shadow And ushered by lamplight to that broken door knob Where her fingerprints are hidden Among the ones she found all over me When I was an overcrowded landscape That shuddered underneath all the stars over Somerville When I was racked with earthquakes Once up the stairs The slow tiptoe through sea glass and snail shells The sweeping of smooth debris Into quiet rooms that I must keep secret Though they conspire to kill me Though the fear is endless Though beauty shines in every window
7.
Defiance 02:42
When you’re drawn taut Against the notion And it’s shape is The shape of short, cold days When you are not So widely open And each movement is odd And out of phase Borderless and bottomless No end, no edge to show It’s an order It’s an anchor A frame for each new fiction A language for the word That means the thing I’ll feel When I find the word When I find the word that Means what we mean now
8.
Bold Love 01:54
Bold love has got me believing All wires hum with the feeling Send sparks that blacken the ceiling Scorch marks and burst seams and dreaming, alright Oh, I move in waves Up and down, side to side Oh, I’m rising up Along a new arc
9.
Up, up and gone
10.
When summer comes It drips down your neck And settles in your sneakers It hangs in the air Like something you never should’ve said It fizzes on the tarmac And sweats in your hands And falls from your mouth In a gust of sand and sailboats That leaves saltwater on your lips When I kiss you in the summer Seagulls howl and whirl in our mouths Our mouths have wings of their own
11.
Untitled 4 03:06
Cells in the service Of some greater design Shapes in a pattern Repeating until They dwindle down And mutate away Ripple out Reverberate Start an echo Leave a fossil Little motor Motoring Start an echo Leave a fossil
12.
Reef & Wreck 02:15
Reefs grow on shipwrecks Love is like that Our toes in the bones Of all the loves that came before ours Crumpled under Strata down, strata deep Each root’s a tightening tentacle Around a thin gullet And other layers lie underneath Each fused and fossilized In the hard earth
13.
Swum 02:15
Swum—no, swam—for it No shore, just shining constellation light Orion in his arc, Orbiting while we felt still And lungs half full So I sunk—no, sank—a bit While teeth and tentacles Invisible below Trailed our toes And dogged our floating
14.
Sea Life 04:49
Copperhead uncoiling Copper bruise spreading through the fallen fruit Floater in the swell Cooled the alcohol washing through And seeing by the moon at night Shining on her sunburned skin Flickered on the tips of dolphin fins And lit our graceful falling Schools of silver fishes The sun makes greens And clouds make deep and dreamy blues Passing over the water Pelicans diving While women cross on broken shells Swiveling their rosy hips They glisten in the shallows Wading

about

Recorded from 1998-2015 in Somerville, Cambridge and Roslindale MA on tape recorder, cassette 4-track, digital 24-track, cell phone and laptop. Sea Life recorded in the studio by Nick.

Mixed and mastered by Nick Zampiello at New Alliance East

All songs ©2015 Joy

credits

released October 9, 2015

DM - Guitars, vocals and things
MS - Vocals and things

With:
Christian Cundari – banjo on Oh, Emily
Matt Dodge – drums on Big Valley, Three At Least and Sea Life
Ariel Rabinovic – guitar on Sea Life
Todd Starlin – trumpet on Defiance
Megan Williams – harmony on Sea Life

Ellie Gill – cover art, lettering
Marc Rapoza – layout

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Joy Boston, Massachusetts

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