What the Wall Forgot

The fire escape is gone.

I didn't know that could happen —

that they could just unbolt a thing

and leave the brick

with pale rectangles where the anchors were,

a kind of fossil of attachment.

I came to find a pen. My mother

needs my signature on forms

that prove she owns what she already owns.

The kitchen hasn't changed: same overhead light,

same grout-dark countertop,

same window giving onto the alley

where a woman I never met

hung sheets each Sunday on the iron rails.

White sheets, sometimes a red cloth

I thought might be a tablecloth.

I watched her for years

without wondering her name.

Now there's a flat beige wall

freshly painted, seamless,

and four pale marks in the brick

like a word rubbed out

before anyone read it.

My mother calls from the other room,

asks if I found the pen.

I say yes.

I haven't moved.