Your Father's Knuckles

[Verse 1]
Your father's knuckles on your own right hand
Tracing the rim of a Topo Chico can.
It's only calcium, only bone and grit,
the same damn shape that learned to map this spit
of sun-scorched earth, and you tell yourself that's it.

[Pre-Chorus]
But down in the valley of the second joint
where the skin is thin, there's a certain point
that starts to thrum when the August air gets still,
a telegram from a forgotten will.
You press it hard with your other thumb until it's white,
just a ghost of pressure in the failing light.

[Chorus]
And you tell yourself it ain't a sign,
just a phantom ache on the blood's design.
You're fine. You're fine.

[Verse 2]
He had 'em too, that same low, steady burn
after twelve long hours on the midnight turn.
"Mijo, it's just a map of all your debts," he'd say,
and fold the crease on the USA Today.
He smelled of diesel oil and coffee grounds,
of all the quiet, necessary sounds.

[Pre-Chorus]
And deep in the valley of his second joint
where the skin was thin, there was a certain point
he'd rub and rub when he thought no one could see,
a quiet war with his own geology.
You saw it once through the screen door's dusty mesh,
a silent argument between the bone and flesh.

[Chorus]
And you tell yourself it ain't a sign,
just a phantom ache on the blood's design.
You're fine. You're fine.

[Bridge]
A superstition's just a prayer that's scarred,
a story told in a losing hand of cards.
One you learned in Spanish, one you learned in stone.

[Outro]
The dust settles where it may.
You're fine.