The Loading Dock Hymnal

[Verse 1]
The Zep ammonia-scent at 4:58 in the morning
Burns the back of my throat, a pre-dawn floral warning.
I'm polishing a floor that I'll never own a piece of,
Just counting down the seconds 'til this fluorescent cease-of-life.
This whole building holds its breath before the sun.
But my shift is almost done.

[Verse 2]
The weak light from the Pepsi machine paints a psalm on the linoleum,
A flickering red testament, a temporary holy home.
And I see your face in its distorted glass, a prophecy in the condensation,
A private transfiguration, a root system's patient irrigation.
I'm watching for your headlights through the bay door's wired pane,
To wash this whole place clean like sagebrush after rain.

[Instrumental Break]

[Verse 3]
You said once, “Your hands just smell like the cold, hard ground.”
It was late July, I remember the sound
Of the cicadas buzzing in the sycamores by the temple wall.
I’ve been trying to scrub them clean since the fall,
Trying to get the grease from under my nails,
But this kind of devotion never fails.

[Outro]
I see the beam cut through the lot. A lock turns in the ignition.
This is the only benediction.