Vaulted heart and vaunted trigger
Enclosed within the safe
Walls thick with stone and thin with need
The boundaries of wrong
To turn away from mission’s call
The toe-drawn line in sand
To walk the Armageddon fork
When each path leads to death
A boy, a boy, a fresh-scrubbed lie
There in the ground he lay
And standing shadowed over him
An exit for his soul.
The man with murder in his heart
Can’t turn and walk away
From his own flesh and his own bone
For eyes of deep soul brown
To hold a chance at making right
The wrongs he’s put in play
The choice was made so long ago
He can’t remember when
To die and let the bastards win
To lock his heart away
Or store up justice like a thief,
Bide, patient through the night
Dole out with hollow points of love
His boy’s redemption price.