Un incident à Bois-des-Filion

I'm in love with a girl
Who drowned between two islands.
She got lost in the water
With algae around her ankles,
Head in the air, like a reed.
She quietly disappeared.
She was there, now she's not.
It's nine o'clock, Ideal Beach,
Twenty minutes from Montreal
And the search continues.
I'm not supposed to talk like this.
We don't rhyme when the person we love is drowning.
I don't know what to do with my ten fingers.
I feel like punching hard
In the calm water of the Mille-Îles River.
I don't want to be there when their damn grappling hooks come.
I'll wait for you near the rapids,
Under the bridge, near the pillars.
Watch out for the wet rocks.
Watch out if you're barefoot.
Watch out for the wet rocks.
Watch out if you're barefoot.
I'm in love with an island,
With a wave that just died
And the children by the water will bury it
Without a smile, with their shovels and buckets.
I know now: love, death,
It takes its toll on the same support.
It takes time, it lasts a long time.
It takes your soul and not your body.
You, you stay there, arms hanging.
They had made predictions:
Fifty drownings for the end-of-season swim,
Fifty drowned for the holiday.
Thanks to my girlfriend, they won.
Tomorrow morning, they will show
At the bottom of a page her photo and the beach.
I was waiting for you near the rapids,
Under the bridge, near the pillars.
Around me, I felt the emptiness.
In ten seconds, I was drowned.
Around me, I have the river
And my lungs have breathed it.
We sink together towards the sea.
Don't try to stop us.
"Water is life," my mother used to say
When I didn't want to go swimming.
Here I am, becoming the water of a river.
We all end up getting wet.
I stayed alone on the beach,
Head in the air towards the clouds.
The storm is coming, it will get wet.
People have all gone to hide.
We didn't have a good summer.
I'm in love with a girl.
(I'm not supposed to talk like this.)
Who drowned between two islands.
(I don't know what to do with my ten fingers.)
I'll wait for you near the rapids,
Under the bridge, near the pillars.
Watch out for the wet rocks.
Watch out if you're barefoot.
Watch out if you're barefoot.
I'll wait for you, Ideal Beach,
One summer evening, when it's hot.
We'll build sandcastles,
You on the beach and me in the water.