The Half That Held

Eighteen years the right wing kept its iron, its glass, its share of sky.

The left was weather. Then scaffold. Then steel cut to the old measure.

In the hall they numbered each board of the ceiling — one thousand two hundred thirty-two — and set each back.

The tower left its place, twenty-six tonnes, returned with its faces and its hands.

This morning they open it as a whole. Outside, free until the eleventh, the crafts still stand in air.

What held was already half a palace while the leftover was weather.