WORKMAN'S LULLABY

[Verse 1]
The Timbs by the back door got a galaxy of scuffs,
October dust caked in the welts and the raw cuffs.
Each crease is a language I never quite learned,
a long shift, a slow burn, another lesson unearned.
I trace the split leather where the steel toe is peeking,
a silent sermon that the old man is speaking.
The floorboards are cold, it's a quarter to three,
studying the man that he won't be to me.

[Pre-Chorus]
The whole house is holding its breath, it's a tight-woven shroud,
the kitchen light hums just a little too loud.
I see the knot in the lace, a forgotten design,
a promise he tied that was never quite mine.

[Chorus]
Yeah, that's the workman's lullaby, left on the floor,
the weight of a man who ain't walked out the door.
It's the workman's lullaby, the scuff and the tread,
all the words in his heart that he worked through instead.

[Verse 2]
He wanted an engineer, a perfect Ivorian son,
instead he got a historian, documenting the run.
Translating the ConEd, the pressure that builds,
mopping up all of the ancestral spills.
He never saw the rhyme book I hid by the bleach,
this tapestry of verses just out of his reach.
They say fill his shoes, but the soles are worn through,
from walking a road I can't follow him to.

[Bridge]
Momma saw me just staring, her voice was a thread,
"'Mon fils, ne touche pas,'" was all that she said.

[Outro]
The latch clicks. A new silence. The leather gets cold.
A story that's over before it gets told.