You circle wax in slow deliberate rings
The brush remembers what your fingers bring
Salt air lifts through the splintered pier boards
Dawn paints the water in thin silver shards
Your thumb finds the crease where the sole meets the welt
A hymn shape rises in the cards you've dealt
The ferry chain clanks in the slack tide hush
You breathe the way the altos taught to hush
Dawn polish catches on the worn toe cap
The dock holds its breath for the first scheduled lap
Your brush sings basso in the quiet hour
Leather drinks light like a communion flower
A gull cries fractal through the lifting mist
You worked the nave before you worked the wrist
The Latin responses still live in your palm
Each stroke a kyrie a murmured psalm
Dawn polish catches on the worn toe cap
The dock holds its breath for the first scheduled lap
Your brush sings basso in the quiet hour
Leather drinks light like a communion flower
The schedule board stays blank through winter weeks
No passengers no tickets no hurried speaks
But you keep time with the tide's slow return
A cobbler's chant where the sacred waters churn
The nylon string hums from the shop radio
Portishead drifting on the harbor flow
Your alto memory harmonizes low
With Trip-Hop beats where the cold currents go
Last coat applied the leather drinks it deep
The ferry horn wakes all the dock from sleep
You set the brush down on the wooden bench
Dawn polish complete on the morning's trench
Dawn polish catches on the worn toe cap
The dock holds its breath for the first scheduled lap
Your brush sings basso in the quiet hour
Leather drinks light like a communion flower
The day begins in leather and in light
Brush rests silent on the warmed wood grain
Ferry cuts silver through the broken rain
