[Newspoetry] demolition

[Kate McDowell]

I wrote this about the sudden absence of another large building on Green
Street in Urbana, but it also brings to mind bombings.

I suppose I could think of this as
Writing locally, thinking globally,
Kate

***
Demolition

We don't see what was there.

Rubble, boards, pieces of stone,
fragments jutting up from black earth

these signal us that
something was that
is no more.

And, faced with trash and absence
we ask ourselves
over and over
what was that?
what used to be there?

And we cannot remember.