Almost a deer print, a trowel marked this done
and seven posts began this carriage house, gone
before we saw our home. Twice a year,
I sweep it clean of mulberries or leaves.
Each year more stones and shells emerge,
pulled from a different time, in shovels full
of river bottom dredged to make this town.

From upturned bricks and boards the earthworms dance
and roly-polies move with industry.
I know why laborers and craftsmen sweat:
to savor commerce every living year,
and we revise the meaning of their work.
How could this life be swept away from me
while I have waited patiently to bloom?

All hearts begin with stone, the marker where
we stake our futures on the past. I think
that someday I will reconstruct the shed,
and build a shop for fabricating dreams
from what we have. I leave more shoots in cracks,
and spare green symmetry for what decays,
cement and self, tomorrow’s sturdy shades.

-Rae Cobbs