Cubit

Lyrics

I’ve got the marrow and I've got the clay
I know how a rafter is supposed to sway
But my own two hands are beside the point
I can't trust the ache in my own left joint
There’s a piece of ash-wood they sent from the Crown
So every new window is true to the town
It’s rubbed dark with linseed, heavy and still
To make sure the masonry matches the will

Whose reach is this? Whose pulse, whose skin?
Whose ghost are we supposed to be living in?
They took one man's body and carved it in oak
Now my own flesh and blood is a half-spoken joke
But the stones line up flush, so we do what we're told
Building a room for a phantom to hold

The brass cap on the ash has a dull, greenish rim
Where the sweat of a stranger ate into the trim
My youngest boy watches, he mimics the lay
Tucking his own small elbow away
His hand knows the distance before the wood drops
But he hesitates, pulls back, and stops
He learns that his body is only a guess
A broken translation. A little bit less

Whose reach is this? Whose pulse, whose skin?
Whose ghost are we supposed to be living in?
They took one man's body and carved it in oak
Now my own flesh and blood is a half-spoken joke
But the stones line up flush, so we do what we're told
Building a room for a phantom to hold

I resent how it feels, this imported grace
But the fellow who’s laying the opposite face
Is a man I don't know, from a town in the dirt
And we're raising a roof that won't buckle or hurt
Because both of us borrow the very same bone
We share the same phantom. We're never alone

Just a ghost in the timber
A stranger's reach in the hall
I pick up the ash-wood
I straighten the wall