Scaffolding

I

The rubber soles of my favourite sneakers are Iago’s hands
letting the cold and wet in to surprise my socked toes.
Only my left foot falls victim to this transgression
- it is well enough for my right supports my weight
on a plank split down the middle and christened.
Far below me, the streetwalkers clutch their own elbows
and shiver, they may glance up if spurred by a loose chip or pebble
tumbling off the many steel beams that prop up
the loose boards. Trust always sounds hollow when you test it
- as does the torso when the wind pushes against it.
No one builds scaffolding just to build it
but the rods never bolt the same way as before
the ply can only be used but so many times
before they must be made new again – the rust scraped off or painted over.
No one builds scaffolding just to take it down.


II

This high up, with the wind spitting in my face
I chip at the concrete but the mind sputters.
You could bolt the rods, beams and boards
in exact requisite order and combination
yet it never feels the same.
Far below me, the streetwalkers come and go
and all I hear them speak about is the cold.
I freeze on these ladders of steel, my senses appalled
– I see how my purpose could be misconstrued.
I’ll let it be known, that’s not what I meant at all.
Shall I promise to touch His hands?
The rods are hollow – yet this sound is different
– I feel the creak of the planks in my left foot
I do not know the sound the chest makes –
as the scaffolding falls away