Junk Ether
The water tower’s brick façade absorbs
the early light, the paint gloss on the castings
the red of rowans after frost.
Beyond the fence’s spiral palings, man-high
and too close for neighbour boys to breach,
the door sign warns against intruders,
but the Yale on the door is holed.
Someone has scaled the snaggle boundary,
entered the world of pumps and meters,
of gemstone water shouldered in the air.
The stair within the central structure rises
like a lost Commandment, impersonal
and restrictive, leading to a room of rain,
graffiti-spray confirming entry without warrant.
A weathervane rotates to the wind’s whim,
a great iron X the letters of the compass tip
beneath an arrow-shaft recording change.
One must stand a distance back to see
it rides the cupola; looking up from the fence
it swings from view, invisible below
where whirls of pigeons congregate.
Aerials sprout from upper courses, nothing else
for miles to interfere with news from nowhere,
the satellite scrum that orbits overhead.
From eaves to earth we hammer copper trails
to lead the lightning down
and brighten this restricted zone,
the sudden day invented as we rise.
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