Roofers in the cold

The next-door neighbour 
hired them late 

These seasoned
roofers of October 
braced like tombstones 

against the currents of 
gray wind
are balancing—
precarious logicians!—
on the slant of a roof

Their forced stances
assume those of 
pyramid builders
in a Cheops mural
whose drawn bodies have 
no perspective
limbs frozen for an eternity 
onto flat-desert architecture

With exotic tools
they strip the roof 
to the wood
reducing it to the color  
of sand
to the fixed geometry
of cold angles

© Stephen de Paul