Skald of the Corner Store (Version 2)

Intro

Steel gate grinds up at six, the sun still owes us light

Old man kept a ledger warmer than the streetlight

Said the block won't forget who fed it through the drought

That's the gospel of the corner before the chains moved out

Verse

Corner store since seventy-two, paint peeling off the sign

He'd pencil in your name when your pocket came up shy

Milk and bread on credit, penny candy for the kids

Kept a bat behind the counter but he never raised the lid

Watched the block go silent when the mill closed down in eighty

Still he cranked the shutter open, said the doors stay steady

Fire took the strip in ninety, ash was ankle deep

He swept it out by sunrise, said a man don't get to sleep

Robbed three times that decade, took a bullet through the arm

Still he cashed the checks on Friday, kept the block from harm

Said the register don't judge you, only counts what's true

Every debt's a story and the story's owed its due

I was twelve, I stocked the coolers, learned to read his hand

Cursive full of names like scripture no one understands