C’est ne pas un pissoir, as Magritte
might have said. And this is, indeed,
more than mere statement of convenience.
Bottles emptied in their thousands that
they might be emptied in thousands more,
rainbow glass recycled in garish opacity
to offer impenetrable windows into the fertility
of an architect’s improbable mind. Departed now:
all good things must come to pass here,
to kindly manure the roots of his legacy’s
living roof, or to drizzle fresh gold where
coal miners once hacked black rock.
In the old station waiting-room café
where the mine railway tracks expire,
Sheila is writing picture postcards after
paying her homage. My brother is
an architect, she tells us. He’ll be so jealous
that I’ve been. She laughs so hard at her
double entendre that she might soon need
to pay a second visit. And you can’t
say that with Duchamp, can you, eh?