Dancing About Architecture in Lead Boots

Thomas Aurin for Sheffield

Dancing About Architecture in Lead Boots

They told me writing about music is like dancing about architecture—

so I laced up my lead boots and signed the waiver.

The blueprint blushes under footlights.

Beams hold their breath.

I attempt a pirouette in a hard hat, tap out a soft shoe on poured concrete—

each step a thesis with a limp.

The bass line hides in the rafters, smirking.

I describe it as “cathedral thunder,” which is accurate

if you’ve never been inside a cathedral or thunder.

My metaphors arrive wearing safety vests,

clipboarded and OSHA-approved,

measuring the load-bearing capacity of a chorus.

I call this rigor.

The chorus calls it trespassing.

The boots—oh, the boots: they drag every adjective through gravel.

Sparks fly. I name them “inspiration.”

The crowd nods politely, hearing none of what I mean

but admiring the audacity of my balance.

Perhaps art prefers bare feet;

dust on the soles, splinters in the metaphor.

Perhaps the building would hum if I stopped stomping

and leaned my ear to the studwork like a penitent

listening for rhythm in the walls.

Until then, behold my careful choreography—

all gravity,

no grace,

and a helmet for my hubris.

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This poem's title is the fifth line from one of my earlier poems, that poem was made up of incomplete sentences, that somehow made great titles.

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Christopher Reilley Poems