I want to meet the man who twisted the curves into wrought iron fences.
Sit me sown with that sandy soul who pulled the big bricks into pyramids,
the woman who wove the tapestries in the Cloisters.
I want to wear an architect on my sleeve
who beats and builds ever so soundly
and I can take him out at any moment
and ask him questions.
Why do men no longer build cathedrals?
When I lean on my brick and siding Ohio home I feel no flying buttresses.
The men who molded great buildings with their fingertips
lay now,
and feed the vines that crawl up their walls.
I want to bless their big decomposing fingers.
When I walk New York’s West Side I cup my hands over old apartment buildings
and read their rocks like braille.
The gargoyles and Roman numerals speak secrets to my fingers.
When I run my little finger along stained glass I know that
creaking floors crack jokes
and rusty screen doors ramble sometimes
about those who walked through their doors
for a hundred years.
Give me marble and a thousand days to cut it,
and domed ceilings like upside-down sailing ships,
and old Victorian doorways marked with the heights of growing children.
Marry me to a carpenter,
give me even five minutes of dialog with a stonecutter,
because even Christ and Socrates carved creations to hold me.
