Weight Bearing

The city has a basement that we’re not supposed to see,

a maze of steam and runoff running dark beneath the grit.

I stepped upon the iron plate and felt the gravity

of all the heavy secrets that are buried under it.

A hollow, metallic clang rang out beneath my heavy boot,

the waffle-patterned metal slick with diesel and the rain.

It’s a lid upon a pressure that is taking ancient root,

a heavy iron witness to the logic of the drain.

We trust our weight to things that are designed to never move,

to the rusted, circular anchors that are bolted in the street.

We walk above the darkness in a shallow, steady groove,

forgetting there’s a cavern just a foot beneath our feet.