Angle of Repose

[Verse 1]
(Spoken word, low and rhythmic, over the groove)
The last pot of Maxwell House is burning to a bitter tar.
Your ghost still holds down booth four, facing west on Michigan Ave.
I'd be flipping burgers, tracing the vectors of your silent war,
the hairline stress fractures in the cracked red vinyl that you tore.

[Chorus]
(Sung, smooth falsetto, strings and horns swell)
Just another angle of repose,
A slow-motion structural collapse that everybody knows.
I saw the torsion in the way you stood,
A pencil sketch of leaving, misunderstood.

[Verse 2]
(Spoken word, groove tightens)
Third Tuesday in November, the first real killing frost.
He ordered two black coffees, you were staring at the salt.
I heard him say, "'It's not the tensile load,' man, 'it's the foundation's give.'"
Then you left a five-dollar tip for the life you didn't live.

[Chorus]
(Sung, smooth falsetto, harmonies richer)
Just another angle of repose,
A slow-motion structural collapse that everybody knows.
I saw the torsion in the way you stood,
A pencil sketch of leaving, misunderstood.

[Bridge]
(Sung, energy drops slightly, more introspective)
Now his coffee's always to-go, a paper cup of steam.
The silence is a girder in this late-night fever dream.
And I just keep the grill on.

[Outro]
(Falsetto, ad-libbing over the unresolved, sustained chord as it fades)
A pencil sketch...
A blueprint of the cold...