The Building Constructed from its Own Fall Poem by Zoë Skoulding

Our feet drag with the effort of
holding it all up. Or is this

weight the way it holds us
down? It begins with an echo,

then a footprint in rubble,
dust gathered into clouds

that churn into a storm
before the ground unsettles,

loose bricks flying up
in the repulsion of forces -

upper storeys rocket
from billows of cement

bound in the blast as walls
heave themselves together,

steel unbuckles, cracks
in the concrete disappear.

Hard to say whether this is
destruction or creation

as the building rises to a tremor,
the shape of itself shifting

into true, the core straight
above its foundation -

a split second of balance
before the fuse lit in a place
that used to be the future.