Modest Monument

© Matthew Word Bain

with shadows leaving room for the imagination
this stalwart structure steals the spotlight
for the last few hours of the day
on the corner, but a little out of the way

at first glance a rather straightforward facade
irregularities emerge upon closer inspection
a patchwork of reconsidered fenestration
and loss of lintels on the left
a bundle of yellow breathing tubes
hidden in the parking lot on the far side

this bundling of simplicity and symmetry
with an apparently complex history
a modest monument to story itself
its own story still being written