How to Cover Something

The building closed its eyes this week—

that's what I thought when I saw it,

boarded up with plywood sheets,

raw wood, pale, the X's of tape

like stitches holding something shut.

Where I used to buy coffee. Where I knew

the name of the person at the register,

the specific sound the machine made

when it warmed up, the smell

of that corner at 7 AM before

anyone else arrived.

Now it's wood. Efficient erasure.

One week it was a storefront,

the next it was a box.

I walked past and couldn't recognize

the shape of my own routine.

They'll renovate it, probably.

Open it as something else.

A different coffee, a different person,

a different sound the machine makes.

Or maybe it'll stay like this,

waiting for something that never comes.

I haven't gone back to see

what's underneath the wood.

I don't think I want to know

if the real building's still there

or if the covering is all that's left,

if the wood is the only honest face it has.