General's Salute

[Verse 1]
Kelham Island cobbles, slick with September rain.
You'd tap on the glass of the Cortina's window pane.
Saw a single black bird on a sagging telephone wire.
Said, "'Morning, General,'" and stoked the family fire.
My knuckles still know the shape of your hand.
A superstition I'm just starting to understand.

[Chorus]
We called it a madness, a twitch in the bloodline.
But you left me a rivet to hold back the sorrow.
A strange kind of grace in a jagged design.
And I'm still saluting your ghost for tomorrow.

[Verse 2]
Stood by the bus stop on Pitsmoor Road, twenty years on.
The Number 83 was taking too long.
The bus shelter glass felt like ice on my face,
Then a flash of black feather, and I fell back in place.
My hand raised up slow, to a bird in the grey.
Didn't think, didn't choose, just let my bones have their say.

[Chorus]
We called it a madness, a twitch in the bloodline.
But you left me a rivet to hold back the sorrow.
A strange kind of grace in a jagged design.
And I'm still saluting your ghost for tomorrow.

[Bridge]
(Spoken-word interlude in a faint, older voice, like a worn recording)
"One for sorrow, two for joy...
Three for a girl, four for a boy..."

[Chorus]
It wasn't a madness, just a twitch in the bloodline.
You left me a rivet to hold back the sorrow.
A strange kind of grace in a jagged design.
And I'm still saluting your ghost for tomorrow.

[Outro]
This morning, on the gantry, I saw two of them fly.
Two for joy, against a steel-plate sky.