On a morning from a folk art movie
In a county where they make boudin
You go trolling through the food like a filé creole
Contemplating a praline

She comes out with a gun in a quickest hunting
Like a water cajun in the rain
Don't bother asking for ex-plantations
She'll just tell you that she came
In the year of a catfish

She doesn't give you time for questions
As she locks up your house in arrears
And you wallow 'till your sense of misdirection
Completely disappears

But the food-tarred walls and the market stalls
There's a hint that she'll eat you, too.
These days, she says, I feed my life
Just like a river gumbo roux
The year of the catfish

While she looks at you so cooly
And her icy spine like what recoils in the shade
She comes incensed and petulantly
So you take her to find what's wading inside
The year of the catfish

Well morning comes and you're still withered
And the cross-eyed tourists are gone
And you've thrown away your choice of lobster tickets
So you have to eat prawn

But the crawfish stains of the night remain
In the rhythm of lake Pontchartrain
You know laissez lay bon temps rue lay
But for now you're going to stay
In the year of the catfish