The Nod (Bromance)

Lyrics

[Verse 1]
I watched two men say goodbye once
At an airport
And the whole thing took four seconds
One said alright
The other said alright
And then a handshake
That lasted exactly one second longer
Than a business handshake
And that one second
Was the entire relationship
Exposed

They have helped each other
Move apartments four times
Which if you calculate the hours
And the furniture
And the stairs
Is more physical labour
Than most marriages
And they have never discussed this
The way you never discuss breathing
Because discussing it
Would imply
You might stop

[Pre-Chorus]
The nod
The nod is everything
The nod across the room
That means I see you
And I have nothing to add
And the nothing to add
Is the fluency

[Chorus]
L'amour du frère, l'amour du frère
The love that built four apartments
And never sent an invoice
L'amour du frère, l'amour du frère
The handshake that held on
One second past professional
And that second
Is the only poem
Either of them will ever write
And it is enough
And it has always been enough
And they will never discuss
Whether it is enough
Because discussing it
Would be the first thing
They'd ever gotten wrong

[Verse 2]
One of them got the call
About his father
At eleven on a Tuesday
And by eleven forty
The other one was there
With a bag from the hardware store
Which contained nothing
That the situation required
But the bag
Was not the point
The bag was the vehicle
For the arriving

He sat on the porch
And said nothing
For two hours
And then said
You need new gutters
Which was the most profound
Piece of emotional support
I have ever witnessed
Because the gutters
Were not about the gutters
The gutters were about
I looked at your house
While you were breaking
And I found something
I could fix
So that you could see
That not everything is broken
Even now

[Chorus]
L'amour du frère, l'amour du frère
The love that shows up with a hardware bag
Forty minutes after the worst call
L'amour du frère, l'amour du frère
The nod across the room
The gutter that was not about the gutter
The silence that did more work
Than most conversations
The handshake
One second long
That held the whole thing up

[Bridge]
I study attachment for a living
And the cleanest attachment data
I have ever collected
Was two men
On a porch
Saying nothing
About gutters
At eleven forty
On the worst Tuesday
Of one of their lives
The control group
Had more words
And less love
And I noted this
And wrote nothing down
Because some data
Resists the paper

[Outro]
Alright
Alright
The handshake holds
One second past professional
And that is the whole language
And the language is complete