Dovetail Joint

[Verse 1]
The Stanley No. 4 plane felt cold in my palm that Tuesday in November.
The whole garage smelled of pine sap and rust, trying to re-member
the right angle for the crosscut, a problem to dismember.
I was sanding down a board just to keep my hands busy, a silent member
of a two-person crew. Mom swept a universe of dust from the workbench,
said my father's hands were a different shape, made the steel wrench
look like a toy. I just nodded, planed another sliver off the board's edge.
I was nineteen, building a wall to stand on a ledge.

[Chorus]
Yeah, the grain ran crooked, the line wasn't true.
Pieces that don't fit, me and you.
The dovetail joint, the wood we sawed through.
Things I should've said, the air turned blue.

[Verse 2]
She picked up a box of loose shims, thumbed the thin edge of the cedar.
Said, "You know, *Człowiek planuje, Pan Bóg się śmieje*," a true believer
in some grand design I couldn't see, the great deceiver.
I saw splintered wood and unpaid bills, a lifetime non-achiever.
She tried to talk about the unpaid union dues from '03,
the second mortgage, the things he never told me.
I measured twice and cut once, said, "This piece is warped, see?"
Changed the subject like a channel, couldn't let the silence hold me.

[Chorus]
Yeah, the grain ran crooked, the line wasn't true.
Pieces that don't fit, me and you.
The dovetail joint, the wood we sawed through.
Things I should've said, the air turned blue.

[Bridge]
Now I see the blueprint clear, it wasn't about the wood at all.
She was trying to brace the frame before the whole damn structure'd fall.
Handing me the nails and hammer, waiting for my call.
Just a boy with a saw, staring at the wall.

[Outro]
Yeah. Just staring at the wall.
The dust motes dancin' in the light before the fall.