Tearing Down the Old Water Tower

I climbed this water tower once at age sixteen,

drunk on stolen liquor mixed in a mason jar:

brandy, tequila & rum. We called it a suicide.

I clutched the jar in my right hand

& teetered two rungs at a time, spitting

on the upturned moons of my friends' faces.

The bone-clean dust of stars stirred

& my body drifted like an idea, like a mouthful

of smoke rising into the night scent of honeysuckle.

My feet slipped. Cold steel. One arm

jammed between rungs the other swinging loose.

The jar was simple. It fell & I watched

it shatter on the concrete, rise fifteen feet

like a crown of milk. There was a sharp crack & then nothing

before dust rose as the water tower fell.

I want to describe this perfectly. That tower

was my idea of night sky, beyond the peeling birches

behind my mother's house. Like cicada shells

I'd crush between finger & thumb, the tower fell into itself.

The moment melted like heat on blacktop.

Dust mushroomed where the tower had stood.

The man ahead of me held a video camera.

White scars on his neck & arms revealed

removed tattoos: a star, a snake curl.

A column of dust fingered the sky & for a moment

it was the tower, the tower would always stand,

until the wind gusted & the crowd winced as the dust stung.