fresh concrete

January. Night. Cold. Dark. Still. There is fresh concrete here. The skeleton of a new building, exposed ribs hollow and open, is floodlit tonight. Bright white light, harsh and industrial, flows from the gaping holes between the supporting pillars. The gaps where the walls go.

On the floor: an expanse of grey. Monotone, flat, slightly gritty. A wide expanse of mattness with just a slight glint, a slight hint of surface sheen. Gloss that marks it out as wet concrete.

I want it. I stare through the steel fence, stare at that bright oasis so carefully illuminated to keep the dark and sodium orange of the street at bay. I want to walk on it, to dance on it, to lie on it, in it, and make angel shapes. I want to write in it, to leave handprints in it. I want to sink down into it, through the gooey, granular grey into a better place. A place of hard certainty, of indelibility, of preservation, of calm and memory. A concrete garden, a concrete tomb, a concrete playground. Secretly, silently mine.