Porcelain Halo

[Verse 1]
The half-full can of Umpqua Oats on the passenger floor.
A sun-bleached FOR SALE sign nailed to a sycamore.
The hum of the inverter, the dry alkali dust.
A three-legged coyote showing its rust.

[Chorus]
But I pull the Ford over where the wires align.
And for a second, that pole is a high-desert shrine.
A porcelain halo, humming and old.
And it's the truest damn story that I've ever been told.

[Verse 2]
The scent of hot vinyl from the dash in July.
That postcard from Reno you never said why.
A fencepost where someone torqued the wire too tight.
It sings one low note in the ten-thirty light.

[Spoken Interlude]
(Sound of radio static, a woman's voice, warm and tired, from a memory)
"Gene, you see the patterns where the rest of us just see work. Don't you ever let 'em knock that out of you."

[Chorus]
And I pull the Ford over where the wires align.
And for a second, that pole is a high-desert shrine.
A porcelain halo, humming and old.
And it's the truest damn story that I've ever been told.

[Bridge]
It's just copper and wood, it's just insulators and steel.
But the gradient's perfect, and the quiet is real.

[Outro]
My porcelain halo...
Against the cirrus and blue.