Inherited Rust

[Verse 1]
The rust on the Copeland Road gate
leaves the same stain on your thumb.
You tell yourself it's just habit, walking the long way 'round,
past the brick where they wrote the scores down in '72.
Six streetlights flicker on your path, a beat behind the sound
of the train over the Clyde, carrying someone new.

[Chorus]
And you touch the iron, like a prayer for the daft.
An inherited rust, a history you can't subtract.
You pull your hand back fast, fix your collar up straight,
as if anyone saw your faith in a Govan gate.

[Verse 2]
His hand was a map of the shipyards, rougher than your own,
that Tuesday he grabbed your fingers, mid-October drizzle.
"'Just for the luck of it, son'," in that Gallowgate tone,
"It's a pure shitehousery tactic against the devil."

[Chorus]
And you touch the iron, like a prayer for the daft.
An inherited rust, a history you can't subtract.
You pull your hand back fast, fix your collar up straight,
as if anyone saw your faith in a Govan gate.

[Bridge]
It's not for a ninety-minute win, not for a last-minute goal.
It's for the part of him that's settled in your bones.

[Outro]
The stain on your thumb.
Same as it ever was.