Runes in the Marrow

Intro

Woodstove ticking, iron tools laid out like teeth

Splint rack by the door, chalk dust on the wreath

Grandfather forged the plates before I forged the name

Every crooked bone that heals still whispers where it came

Verse

Coal town cracked its men like kindling on the tracks

Gears took fingers, gates took backs, I set what the mill gave back

Grandfather hammered steel into a plate no bigger than a coin

Screwed it through the femur, told the boy it's how you're joined

Not to God, not to glory, to the ground that broke you first

Bone remembers pressure like a field remembers thirst

I learned the trade at twelve, wrapping wrists in linen strips

Watched him set a shoulder while the man bit down his lips

Father drank the pain off, passed the bottle, passed the craft

Told me every splint's a sentence and the scar's the aftermath

I don't carry morphine, I carry whiskey and a prayer

Set it straight the first time or you'll set it crooked there

Miners come in shattered, leave in six wee