Zero Return

[Verse 1]
Your Moore & Wright calipers are cold on the bench,
Feel the knurled steel thumb wheel, giving an inch.
It’s quarter past three on a Tuesday again,
Trying to find the dimension of where you're not in.

[Chorus]
And oh, I'm measuring the silence you left in the air,
Between the last gear I cut and the first whispered prayer.
A hundredth of a millimetre, a hair's breadth of gone,
Trying to true up a world that's been welded all wrong.

[Verse 2]
The vernier scale still smells of cutting fluid and you,
And the ghost of Old Holborn tobacco seeping through.
Your grease-stained hands steadying mine on the lathe,
"Measure twice, cut once, love," the only gospel you gave.

[Chorus]
And oh, I'm measuring the silence you left in the air,
Between the last gear I cut and the first whispered prayer.
A hundredth of a millimetre, a hair's breadth of gone,
Trying to true up a world that's been welded all wrong.

[Bridge]
And they bring me their flowers, their casseroles in foil,
Tell me it gets easier, this sacred bloody toil.
But my hands know the temper, the fatigue in the grain,
And this isn't a sadness, it's just acid rain.

[Outro]
Setting the dial back to zero… can't find the start.

(pause)

…Just the hollow.