Picnic Table Lyrics

Alix Olson Picnic Table

We sat outside
At the picnic table
Drinking beer and smoking cigarettes
I asked you to take out your barrettes, you said yeah, and as you glanced up
Your hair danced up and down
I smiled, you got shy, you said ‘don’t smile’
I said ‘why’, you said ‘just don’t’
I said ‘okay, I won’t’
And I smiled
And your skin caught like wildfire
Like there was no need for the sun
You placed a finger on my cheek
You said ‘that had to be done’
You carved something like a comma
And I wondered what would come
We went inside, I pet your cat
You said ‘I think she’s lonely
I think she needed that’
I said ‘are you lonely too?’
You said, ‘no girl, that kind of talk won’t do’
You said ‘the futon’s kind of lumpy
But the bed’s pretty smooth’
And then I thought about her laughing heart and all the tears that make us grow
And I looked into your smiling eyes and all the lines that take me so, so
So much further than I intended to go. I said
‘thanks for the bed
I think the lumps will have to do’
You said
‘it’s better that way’
I said ‘yeah, I think so too..."
And then I thought about her laughing heart
And all the lines that make it
And I tucked that heart into the cradle of my brain
Cause I’d never want to break it
But I still picture your hair sometimes
Dancing all wild in the dark
I still wonder about that comma carved
So curiously hard and sweet
And yeah, sometimes I finish that sentence
You left there on my cheek
Cause you know us poets
We like our moments complete