Ian Wedde
from Good Business
Metalworx Engineering
It's as though Metalworx Engineering in Vivian Street
has always been there. Always, that ancient smell
of the mineral earth smelted, beaten and twisted
into mild-steel elbows, the gothic interior
flickering with acetylene and loud with iron bashing,
its ventilators paddling sunlight in
and metal dust out. The display-window samples
of metal-craft with lumpy welds have been there
forever and especially the rusting toy crane that's always
been for sale but will never
be sold. Can't ever be sold unless there's a buyer somewhere
who understands that the forever crane's lifting
the entire weight of the future, which will end
along with Metalworx Engineering
if the crane's ever taken from its alchemical window
and expected to be half as real in another place.
