The tide comes up around her,
She stares out to sea,
She ain’t waiting for her baby,
She ain’t waiting there for me.

Her mouth opens to the air,
Salty scents run to her lungs,
She voices deepest thoughts,
Not to me or anyone.

“I’d feel hollow,
If I felt anything at all,
It has been twenty-five years,
If I had it to do over,
I would just lose everything again.”

Back toward the boardwalk,
Music pours over the wood,
Breathy women and passed crooners,
Reach her ears beneath her hood.

She looks up to the sky,
For an answer that won’t come,
Her knees are in the water,
Her heart has already sunk.

“I’d feel hollow,
If I felt anything at all,
It has been twenty-five years,
If I had it to do over,
I would just lose everything again.”

Young lovers kiss in the dunes,
I watch from my throne of sand,
As the ocean breaks around her,
She’s too far now to reach my hand.

Seaweed round her hips,
Like a belt to tie her down,
She sways with the breakers,
Her hands are under now.

“I’d feel hollow,
If I felt anything at all,
It has been twenty-five years,
If I had it to do over,
I would just lose everything again.”

They found her on the jetty,
Wrapped lovingly by the tide,
In flowers from the ocean,
Surely to her suffering hide.

God forgive her if he keeps her,
Damn him if he don’t,
She’s the lady in the water,
Hers the heart that life broke.

“I’d feel hollow,
If I felt anything at all,
It has been twenty-five years,
If I had it to do over,
I would just lose everything again.”