Nancy Kerr 2016
Apparently written in support of a friend's kid coming out as trans.
Nancy Kerr & James Fagan: https://kerrfagan.bandcamp.com/track/fragile-water
I am a man upon the land
Cold and slender as a secret river
And glamour folds within my hand
Like a salmon skin of beaten silver
Chorus:
My little fish slip off your skin
And leave it in the tide for gulls to plunder
And if you wish to walk or swim
Let there be nothing in the world to hinder
I cannot walk among your kin
For after water, land seems so much harder
But I will fall from wandering
To land on beaten sand and fragile water
Bridge:
There are other gifts than silver
Like another word for lover
If we only hold each other
We are beaten sand and fragile water
You know the ocean will bleach our bones
You know the burning sun will melt the boulders
Don’t mourn my shadow among the stones
For after winter, spring seems somehow colder
But as the ocean courts the strand
‘Til he becomes the grit that surges in her
So generations may understand
We are all beaten sand and fragile waterÂ