Lawrence Bridges, Sidewalk With Daffodils Leading to Residential Ruins After a Fire, 2025 (Artist Instagram)
Digital photograph
Courtesy of the artist
The shelves all had lips where I grew up to stop
the dishes from rattling free when the airplanes took
off over our building, to stop the glasses from trying
to shake themselves back into the sand they were
made of, to stop the knickknacks from finding new
places to hide. Now every shelf looks naked, unready—
the seatbelt retracted before the accident. And I know
the lipless shelf is the normal shelf. And I know things
shimmy their way to the ground. But listen, the lip stopped
some of it. There was a plate with names of all fifty
state capitals on it. It was ugly but I loved it. I always
stacked the other dishes on it. When I was eight, the shelf
itself gave way, and because that plate was on the bottom,
the lip held it, even vertical. It was the only one that
survived. I lost it in a move a decade later. A decade.
So I am writing this lip to hold what I can of having
the fear of falling built right into the walls. Every flight
was people leaving. Every vibration, someone’s vacation
or way home. And the crushed china was the silent
damage of departure. I’m sure our own plane, the last
time we left, sent something precious to the linoleum
in some home I will never know. I’m not sure whose head
snapped to the sound or whose chest filled with the loss
but I am sorry the lips weren’t higher. I’m sorry we couldn’t
have stayed.