Your Helmet's Dent

[Verse 1]
The Calexico Bulldogs are down by six on the chain.
The south-end bleachers still taste like dust and cold rain.
You used to keep a silver dollar from your grandfather's cuff,
Polished it on your jeans for luck when the blocking got rough.

[Verse 2]
The last Friday in October, the year we turned seventeen.
I see the nick on the side of that Spartan helmet green.
You got it breaking through the line against the Holtville Vikes,
Left a little of their yellow paint under the sodium lights.

[Verse 3]
We shared a Coke from the stand, leaning on the fence wire,
You said, "This water tastes like dirt, my whole throat's on fire."
Then you pointed at the All-American Canal out in the black,
Said, "That's a line you either cross or it breaks your damn back."

[Bridge]
And the years are a slow drip line on a hardpan soul,
Just enough to keep a root alive, but not to make it whole.
That friendship we had runs like a rumor through the fallow ground,
A ghost of water in the ditch that doesn't make a sound.

[Outro]
They're shutting off the field lights now, one by one.
Ni modo, partner. The game is done.