Ashes of the Allfather's Son (version 2)

Intro

Furnace door glows orange like a wound that won't close

Foreman called him Allfather, don't nobody know why he chose

Molten metal pours slow, patient as a psalm

I was seven in the doorway, watching fire in his palm

Verse

Foundry floor, ninety-four, heat like a held breath

Papers said explosion, we just called it his death

He poured steel for forty years, hands like tempered bark

Taught me sparks don't burn you if you learn to read the dark

Every scar he wore was a ledger of the trade

Said the metal keeps the record better than the wage they paid

Union hall gave a plaque, mama hung it on the wall

Bronze don't feed a family, bronze don't answer when you call

I dropped out at sixteen, took his gloves off the shelf

Melted down his old ring, poured a blade to know myself

Foreman said the boy's too young to run a forge alone

Watched me pour that iron till the shape became my own

Slag and cinder in my lungs like a second kind of blood

Every burn's a signature written before