anti:freeze

The pedestrian staircase on the south side of the Broadway Bridge, wrapped Christo-like, as repairs are completed.

These steps are untrustworthy, with crumbling concrete and rusted metal. They lean to one side, like a crooked spine, the vertebrae about to snap. On rainy days, I imagine my body tumbling down, my nose bleeding and teeth cracking, fillings and bone scattered on the sidewalk like spilled change. If you stand to the side and look up to where the steps meet the bridge, you will see how they resemble a library ladder. You will see why I want to slide the staircase into the traffic lanes, and why I want to attach it to the trees and rooftops.

In white, the staircase is a ghost, floating up to the bridge. It is an old man, hunched over, with his hood up in the rain. A dirty bone. A prehistoric bird, craning its neck. A dinosaur. A ski slope. Fog floating over the side rails.

And look, at the bottom, there is a little door:

I was wrong when I said it was like Christo. He would never allow the wooden boards, or the thin pine laths nailed into the sheet. It is more like something from Beuys, with its cheap materials and filth, arte povera right here in my neighborhood. In that case, I am taking the wooden boards literally. They are a kind of door. I will open them and crawl inside.