remnants: notes on waiting

It was hard to see the street from the obstructed view of the

wroth iron that stretched in front of my face separating outside

from inside. I could smell the rust yards away and a story above,

its pungent brassy brown stuck in the inner side of nostrils, burning

when concentration was somewhere upon the horizon. Flakes blowing

in the air, inhaled and suctioned unto capillaries housed inside

my strained lung cavity.

A strewn pile of leaves lay still in the crevice built to keep the

gate's mechanics in place. One had to pull really hard for the

tracks to respond to the iron, water, dust and salt. It's trace hung

to my fingers all day regardless of soap, it seemed to have a magical

quality of rendering everything in its own likeness. Godlike.

Vacuous.

His chair sits like death in the corner. Torn and ragged, its center descending

to the floor, in a sorrow filled wilt. The bamboo frays; the delicate beginnings

and remains waver- its boundary insufficient. His piano covered by

inches of dust: derma, membrane, our scales stroking the atrophying wood,

its pedals stiff...wires broken.

No one inside knows how to play.

On mornings that were still we would sit and peer over each other.

The detritus that collided within the space kept us bound;

ram-shackled louvres, barren pots and pans, gradients that moved

from green to blue. Blue reflecting off the water. Water the

omnipotent and righteous.

H