The Hippos Were Boiled in Their Tanks

The bar was a sweat-stained debt, four drinks deep and nothing yet. A glass traced the edge of a name, a girl who never came. The war was over, the streets were wet, every shadow a silhouette. And somewhere under the river's thick skin, a body was learning to let the cold in. You can't wash the blood from the story. You can't pull the knife from the song. Get started, get started, get down, get pulled under — go. The hippos were boiling in their tanks! The water was dark, the air was rank! The hippos were boiling, burning alive — nobody gets out clean, nobody survives! A moth with a taste for doom, followed the heat from room to room. "Let's take a walk to the river," he said, the words still hanging over my head. We drank till the bottles bled their last, the future a thing of the past. And somewhere between a punch and a kiss, a knife closed the book on all of this. You can't wash the blood from the story. You can't pull the knife from the song. Get started, get started, get knife, get it over with — go. The hippos were boiling in their tanks! The water was dark, the air was rank! The hippos were boiling, burning alive — nobody gets out clean, nobody survives! We went back to the bar the next day, ordered two beers and looked away. The papers were screaming, the radio too, but nobody mentioned the hippos. Do you? The hippos were boiling in their tanks... The water was dark, the air was rank... The hippos were boiling, burning alive... nobody gets out clean... nobody survives.