Temporary Varnish

[Verse 1]
The fluorescent hums above the Bexar County seal.
I know the feeling of a scuffed-up heel.
The air is thick with lemon cleaner and the heat.
I’ve watched you practice smiling out on the street.
Your boy is tracing patterns on my worn-out tile,
you’re trying hard to make this last another mile.

[Chorus]
It’s just temporary varnish on a hardwood fear,
a borrowed name to last a boughten year.
You’re praying that the grain beneath holds true
before the weather wears right through.

[Verse 2]
That woman at the counter never looks you in the eye.
She pushes forms beneath a sky of particleboard sky.
“Firma aquí,” you whisper, showing him the spot.
A seed you’re planting in this little paper plot.
“Sign on page three,” says a voice like tin,
never asking where you’re from or where you’ve been.

[Bridge]
It’s been thirty Julys since I saw your father’s face,
standing in this self-same, suffocating space.
He held the same hope, a quiet, fragile thing,
waiting for the harvest that the papers bring.

[Chorus]
It’s just temporary varnish on a hardwood fear,
a borrowed name to last a boughten year.
You’re praying that the grain beneath holds true
before the weather wears right through.

[Outro]
Before the weather wears right through.