The Building Constructed from its Own Fall

Our feet drag with the effort of 
holding it all up. Or is this 

weight the way it holds us
down? It begins with an echo,

then a footprint in rubble, 
dust gathered into clouds

that churn into a storm
before the ground unsettles, 

loose bricks flying up 
in the repulsion of forces – 

upper storeys rocket 
from billows of cement 

bound in the blast as walls 
heave themselves together, 

steel unbuckles, cracks 
in the concrete disappear. 

Hard to say whether this is 
destruction or creation 

as the building rises to a tremor, 
the shape of itself shifting

into true, the core straight
above its foundation –

a split second of balance 
before the fuse lit in a place 
that used to be the future.