New Virginia

A Chicago needle took her in the summer
I pawned our shit and caught a bus out west
I got off the Greyhound in a corn and cattle town
Because the name recalled my mother's place of rest

It seemed like a haven for clean Christian maidens
Who'll love a man despite the holes he's made
But the scourge arrived a decade before I did
Provided by the trailer parade

New Virginia, Iowa
Virgin land apart from who I was
New Virginia, Iowa
Poisoned boys do as poison does

Cornfields can't quite cover the bodies of our lovers
Singing from the Cook County morgue
I managed to bandage my memory of the damage
With the sheets of the clerk from the store next door

She had left the church when her cursing father left her in the lurch
She told me sleep is for the old
I met her friends tending bar when harvest ended
So wide awake I couldn't feel the cold

New Virginia, Iowa
Virgin land apart from who I was
New Virginia, Iowa
Poisoned boys do as poison does

For our sins, we've got modern bathtub gin
It's a long night, a long night to go
And I know in the shack on Felton's curve
I'll get, I'll get what I deserve
Lord, steady my nerves

The lives we've led are never really dead
Nor the psalms that set the bombs off in our heads
By the time I'm clean this prairie will mean nothing to me
I'll curse another place instead
Whoa, it's a long night, a long night to go