I
There is great diversity within the brick species.
Walls populated with beige, umber, cinnamon and espresso faces.
No racial discrimination.

II
Bricks are not obsessed with perfection.
They allow pores, holes, crevices and asymmetries to bloom on their faces, even severe ones.
The lack of a common beauty standard is the only beauty standard.

III
Nonetheless, there are annual beauty pageants
To evaluate the aesthetics of imperfection.
Last year’s winner had a face yellow and grey, the color of summer’s skin,
With star-shaped holes adorning her cheeks like freckles.

IV
Bricks are thrilled for touch.
They quiver imperceptibly at my fingertips,
Invisible butterflies fluttering at the crevices, eager to break through.
Or is it an earthquake?

V
It is in the nature of brick walls that they tremble and fall,
Because they are not entities, but compositions
Of seemingly compliant creatures who in fact tend to rebel and betray each other.
Lesson: never trust something of whom you can’t look straight into the eyes.

VI
Correction: bricks do have microscopic eyes,
Sharp and artfully hidden, camping out under each skin cell,
Dripping with words they can’t utter.
It’s pretentious to assume that they are silent or shy,
When all they need is someone who speaks their language.
Brick translators are nearly extinct nowadays.

VII
We shun bricks, so haughtily  
Before we perish and bricks pile on top of our ashes.
We insignificant creatures who dig around in vain all our lives, like moles,
Only to be outlived by dumb bricks and blue sky.

VIII
Bricks fall off from the skin of ancient dynasties,
Splitting open the empty brains of our self-centered modernity.

IX
Bricks hug each other so tightly
Even though they are mostly in love with themselves.
They are the original hypocrites.
Cement outlasts romance, unfortunately.

X
That’s not entirely true.
Ever since the magical invention of the printing press,
Romance has been diluted into billions of paperback copies and digital codes,
Sold with slam poetry and astrology readings.
But somewhere it’s still the original, sealed in bricks and carved on tablets of stone.

XI
Bricks protect and bricks limit.
Bricks record and bricks withhold.
Why do people construct brick walls?
A wall for the body, a circle for the soul.