I
Awake!
“Bay Street Brick
is what I am.
Over 100 years old
painted thirty-two times.
“Worn down, graffitied
Rain and wind
have tried their best to dissolve me,
none more effective than time
“This archaic building needs me no more!
It could still stand strong
with the absence of ONE.
The Builders that placed
me here did wrong”
II
“Bay Street Brick,
a vacation I need!
Perhaps to be a part of
a patio in Costa Rica,
or the frame of a family’s backyard BBQ?
“I could retire in a
garden wall with a view
of a timbered Tudor home.
“If I had legs to travel on,
or a mason to see my true potential
Hands to move me about the globe”
III
“You dream too loud!”
Scream the other bricks,
“Don’t demean your position.
You are directly at a pressure point
holding up the wall
“If you left the strain would be too much.
This building would fall into the street-
the building that is US!
“Crushing passers-by,
the Builders that walk by us all hours
the Wise Ones that placed us”
IV
The Bay Street Brick
considers the words of his
brothers and sisters born of
the same mash
Gravity pressing all five sides
Painted face hidden behind
too many of other’s… colors
“US is stronger than one” it says,
“Travel is only afforded
those with Legs of Men”
Brick becomes quiet, withdraws
Folds aways its vision of vacation
holds the building up another 100 years,
in sleep…
***
shannon p. laws 