Dear Open Square, Full Of Gentrified and Glorified Hugeness, Clean Immensity,
I wonder if you look down your nose at your neighbors, if you sneer at buildings like mine. I feel antagonistic towards you today and I apologize for my tone. But your rigid rows of unbroken windows exude an order that can be overwhelming and you are so far ahead of your sisters in becoming something new.
I wonder if you mind that some old ends of your hallways are still raw like scraped elbows. I wonder if you like housing a bridal boutique. Maybe it feels right; you were a silk mill, after all.
Do you mind being divided up, does it ring untrue to be called Open Square, do you miss your old name, Lyman?
Do you feel your parts correspond, repeating along the canal? Cleaned-up and divided bays abut others whose spaces are vast and raw. Does it remind you of your past, present, and future?
Maybe we need to talk more about that last thought, Open Square. Until then, I will remain —
Curiously yours,
Alexis Fedorjaczenko writes poetry, essay, and in hybrid methods, and her visual work includes handcrafted Poem Objects, analog and digital collage, poetry, and photography. Her long poem “Ways to Enter an Abandoned Mill” was a Zoetic Press nominee for Best of the Net 2021; an essay about her visual poetry appears in Axon Journal; and for more info: AlexisF.com or Twitter. Alexis makes home in rural New England.
