the red brick building

the building
on connecticut
avenue is shadowed
and small as
far as buildings
go, but rises
seven stories tall
in brushed red brick,
heavy stone
and casement
windows, stiff
and black, and
the air conditioning
units hanging
like tongues
from several edges
of warped sills,
beat out a constant
summer hum. it all seems
to have grown
there with trees,
some evolutionary
feat of melancholy,
and the bones
are all there, as is
the watery memory
of you on
the flat roof
where you found your
way up through
the narrow stairs,
and turned the latch
to crawl onto
the cool pebbled
surface in your bare
feet. were you
only trying to get
closer to the stars?