Testo: John Vanderslice. Gainesville, Fla.

I was born in a summer storm
Grass was cold but the sky was warm
They lay me down in the mossy fields
Where the crows kill with tender speed

Sun burned off the lonely clouds
And warmed my face, the roots in the ground
They washed me off in a shallow stream
Where sand dunes line the beach

I grew up on that moody land
I understood the tension all around
Between me and you and dad
How a sun burn goes cold and damp

How we hovered all in between
Slight sliver where life can begin
Between oxygen and temperature
Or the force fields of boy and girl

I was born in a summer storm
Grass was cold but the sky was warm
And so I hover now in between
The slight sliver where life can breathe

Submariners crashed my sleep
I heard about it on the BBC
I can hear as they tap on the steel
Of a hull downed in the melting sea