This is another of those ones where I feel certain I’ve written it before, and can’t figure out when/where I might have done. But they took away the scaffolds from in front of my office building today; I forgot that they hadn’t always been there, honestly. The sunlight was downright blinding upon leaving work, I tell you.
I’ve been doing a lot more writing in my (offline) journal this week, which is part of my not-posting. I’m hoping that some of it comes together soon… it’s all long-form stuff with lots of threads to keep track of. Don’t know what’s going to come of it quite yet, but we’ll see…
Unscaffolding
When they peel back its wrinkled steel skin filled
with months of rust calligraphy, there is no ceremony–
no ribbon-cutting, no speeches, just the curious
pallbearing of great rectangles ringing in the wind
and the breaking of vertical bones– and the builders
turned destroyers clear pigeon nests from the joists,
disentangle the rigging that has hidden the building
for so long– until at last they come to the portico
whose glass canopy had been forgotten– and
the only wake for that skeleton is a momentary
surprise, which seems so plain for jailers cracking
cocoons of metal into an ignition of the sky.
This is beautifully written – I can ‘see’ the scene clearly. I wonder if the building was embarrassed to be undressed in public!
Joseph, “rust calligraphy” absolutely made me smile, which is something I need right now, so thanks for that brief reprieve.
Viv: I wish I’d thought of that aspect! It would have been a clever element.
Misky: it was rather cool to see all of it in the corrugations…