Many years ago we viewed it
above the shop called simply
Convenience, a luxury
the apartment opposed, its floors

already soft, ceiling convex,
falling into the arms of gravity
as do we all. Vacant now
it’s on the bus route

and so I see it too often,
first tentative tags given way
to bubble and wildstyle climbing
the brickwork, a paste-up of Shiva,

destroyer of worlds,
and the inscription Fuck Landlords.
As radiation accelerates the evolution
of the feral dogs of Chernobyl,

greed and neglect have hastened
the building’s transition
into a state beyond purpose.
The land beneath it has its ear,

it inhales the amnesia of spores,
light filters through
its soaped windows like light
through the soaped windows

of all the deconsecrated churches
awaiting resurrection as condos
with paradisical walk scores.
They are released for a time

into a common meadow. But Denise is right:
“The past can’t tell it is
the past,” and won’t go gently.
When a mysterious and purifying fire

prepares Convenience for demolition,
one more trace of us will vanish
with it, one less excuse
for sentimental nonsense, in this life

one has to be hard. Honestly,
it can’t happen fast enough.
And the owner will say it’s for the best,
he couldn’t give that place away.