The Sea-Pin (Pintle)

Lyrics

[Intro]

Here at the boatyard, October 1650, ten in the morning.
The air bites at 45 degrees, tar and saltwater thick in my nose.
I'm holding the pintle, twelve inches of iron, greased black.

[Verse 1]
This pin, forged on that rusty anvil over there,
by a shipwright named Elias Hawthorne, who learned in 1632 from his father.
It fits the sternpost of the sloop Margaret, bobbing in the murk.
Hammer it with the worn mallet, clang against the chill.
From Old English pintel, since 1375, securing rudders on the Thames.
But the sailors whisper, in taverns like The Anchor's Rest,
riddles from the 1500s: what's the sea-pin that points elsewhere?

[Chorus]
Pintle, you pivot the boat, hold the course steady.
Yet your name wanders, to the verb-cognate, the one they don't say aloud.
In the boatyard, you're iron and necessary.
Elsewhere, you're the jest in the song, the hidden meaning.

[Verse 2]
Smell the eel pies from the stall, pastry warm against the fog.
Elias hands me the pin, slick with grease, cold in my palm.
It leaves a black smear, like ink from a forgotten glossary.
Eric Partridge noted you in 1937, slang from the docks,
double life: mechanical bolt, or the part that sailors laugh about.
No records of those apprentices, their banter lost to time.
But I see you clear, pintle, foundation of the turn.

[Bridge]

What if the gaps spoke? The unnamed dockside women,
hearing the riddles, chuckling over ale in 1650.
Their voices drowned in the tide, but the word survives,
pivoting from ship to skin, from tool to tale.

[Verse 3]
Fit you to the gudgeon now, secure the rudder's swing.
The sloop will sail to Bristol, carrying wool and whispers.
Pintle, you're the hinge, the quiet connector.
In the Oxford Dictionary, 1989, they trace you back,
but miss the laughter, the crude pivot in the jest.

[Outro]

Back at the boatyard, pintle in place.
The verb lingers elsewhere, unspoken but known.
October chill, tar scent fading.