I write on a porch in
honest sunlight; hot iron chair and table stamping my skin. I listen for the
right sound because behind me and in front of me and even, it seems, above me
surrounds: The Construction. I capitalize it because it really is an event.
Long lasting and rowdy. Sounds that have just become sound that have really
just become silence. And when you listen through the silence that is when you
certainly hear the right sounds.
A dull shoow shoow
shoowwwsh.
I listen longer eyes
closed. Hot iron stamping my skin.
A pulley creaks.
Shoowshes grow heavy.
Sharp snaps of fabric
puncture the air
preceding every
shoow shoow shoowsh.
Then it stops. And the
silence becomes sound and the sound becomes sounds. And I open my eyes and I
see all colored fabric. Wet and wrinkled and pinned on two ropes pulleyed
together. Fluttering, rippling. T-shirts and pants and underwear and blouses
all flags just waiting to dry in the honest sunlight.
