No One Told You It Was Over

I drove past it again, by habit —

the building's been condemned for years —

and there was the fence around it,

new orange tape through the links, and smears

of marker on a cardboard sign:

PRIVATE, in someone's careful hand,

already bleeding in the rain, the line

between the letters going soft, unplanned.

I used to cut through here at sixteen,

just to save four minutes, maybe five.

The gap in the fence was always open.

Nobody's business. Just the drive

to get somewhere faster, cheaper,

the minor thrill of being technically

not supposed to. The chain-link keeper

of whatever's on the other side. The free

feeling of a shortcut, which is really

just the feeling of not asking.

I pulled over. Read the sign clearly

enough. The tape was overlapping

itself in one place, figure-eight

looped through the diamond links, almost

decorative, almost too late

to be a warning. Just a ghost

of one. The building's roof had shifted

somewhere in the back — I could see

the sag of it. What I'd been gifted

permission for, apparently,

was over before the sign.

I'd just kept cutting through anyway,

long after I'd crossed some line

no one bothered to say.