The North Decatur Square at Frazier-Rowe

Lyrics

[Intro]
The asphalt breathes at North Decatur and Clairmont.
Not quite Toco. Not quite the city of Decatur.
Just this corner.
This square that isn't square.

[Verse 1]
Seven-forty a.m.
The air is warm corn from the tortilleria.
A smell that doesn't know about the eruv wire just up the hill.
Doesn't care.
Hands trade cash for a hot stack, wrapped in paper.
Lunch for the guys working on the roofs over on Sheridan.
Breakfast for the woman waiting for the 36 bus.
This is a different kind of daily bread.

[Chorus]
And the maps don't name you, North Decatur Square.
You're just an intersection, a line the surveyors drew.
But the pharmacy awning knows the arc of the afternoon sun.
The tortilleria door knows the morning rush by heart.
You are the quiet hinge.
The place between the places.

[Verse 2]
Four-fifteen p.m.
The sun drops behind the pharmacy roof.
The temperature falls ten degrees on the sidewalk.
A woman with an Emory ID badge gets her mother's prescription.
A man in a Braves cap buys bandages for his kid's scraped knee.
No grand pronouncements here.
Just the small, necessary medicines.
The quiet trust handed over a counter.

[Bridge]
I looked for you in the DeKalb County archives.
No mention. No ribbon cutting in 1958.
No founding date for the corn-grinders, no nameplate for the first pharmacist.
Your history isn't written in ink.
It's written in tire-wear and scuffed linoleum.
In the relief of a fever breaking.
In the simple goodness of a fresh tortilla.

[Outro]
The pharmacy sign hums on.
The corner holds its breath.
Waits for the next bus.
Waits for the next prescription.
Waits.