Mr. B’s workshop windows were kept open all year round. Thick air outwards. Thick air in. Sparks held their shape while he hammered metal on his anvil. Bouncing off his leather apron, they flew outdoors and hung close, decorating Half-Moon Street and Emmet Place.¹Stages of Mr. B’s process were held and furthered and made permanent in a local sky. Sparks’ reds and oranges pulsated, and they spread, making a temporary canopy across the width of Emmett Place. They floated and gently roamed like disordered thoughts, micro in their value, and powerful in their freedom. In the comfort and effort of a coal fire, Mr. B’s metal sat in redness. A slowed down sequence reclaimed peace in the time of making. A giant, expanded accordion-shaped paddle produced excess air. Determined by design, his workshop had clarity. His close work made a hammer on metal as focused as land’s thirst for the earth’s core. Every place had its own sky. His was the shape of the negative space of his curly ironwork. Its own forecast. Its own history. The multiple sparks settled and glittered. Touchable stars acting as wise little structures, little pieces of knowledge, little reminders of what had been. Scattered like the invaded empire that kept iron as a secret and travelled and moved and applied their smelting knowledge to produce the Iron Age.²The sparks intersected with frozen feathers. Occasionally kissing when seen at particular angles. When Mr. B turned off Half-Moon Street in an elegant swerve, his legs making arcs, he swore he saw a spark and feather kiss. As unbelievable and guaranteed as a shooting star. Both earned a permanent status in Emmet Place ¬¬– there was no threat of a spark burning a feather or a feather disintegrating in heat or rain. No worries of the sparks dying out in the rain either. These items carried a presence that was outside of time and resistant to impact from the elements.³Their power was to record events. They were up against a head-bowing silence and attempts at forgetting. Mr. B’s beads of sweat glowed like a frozen flame. His teardrop fluids were the same shape as the top of his ornate railings. His body and labour made permanent around the city. Homes and businesses were hemmed by his iron produce. He coated a world. A witness is still. A gaze is frantic.

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