Monday, October 26, 2009: photo by Marcos Armstrong (via his Flickr)

Strange Design

Strange design has been applied
to this sheet metal. Water’s

drooled, dragging rusty stalactites,
brown daggers. Perforated

stencils—labels of ounces and pounds,
an emblem resembling a sheriff’s badge.

The most recent revision: seventeen
bullet holes, a constellation

of freckles, troublesome moles. We process
the punctures as polka dots, black

spots, dark drops of paint.
This metal is aging artfully,

unwittingly, thanks to the dusky
palette of decay, graffiti.