Architectural
poem by Suzanne Marie Hopcroft
There are bricks behind my
wall, and they are old. Every
inch of painted-over plaster hides
an inside that is really an
outside, like our building’s
crumbling skin had been slapped
over a thicker, brighter dermis meant
to keep the rain out and
the rats in, and now they have
stripped it down. I want to
believe that my elbows don’t
herald a slackness to come, that
the carousel won’t turn more
slowly until its spins are inside
my brain and my guts dance
on the fairground floor, but
this is play. Falling into
the bath I know that one rusted
razor begets another, like bruised
apples languishing in the bowl. That
some morning not far in this
world bounded by sky and
spoons they will lay me out
and sledge me, undress
my brick-lined being.