Tag: spalling bee

My brother probably noticed that I flicked him a look,

when he said my joints were “spalling;”  sounds like

a disease of old age, but the topmost

layer of little sand grains was not

adhering after I topped off the mortar,  

brick by brick, joint by joint, by eighths,

sixteenths. Days and nights passed.      

Adhesion was what concerned me most when

I cleaned each brick  with a spray bottle and brush

So as not to disturb the joints.  Spalling, eh?  

I can’t know every word in the Mother Tongue,

but if it happens, there is probably word for it.  

What puzzles me is that he knew that word,

because certainly I’ve laid more bricks.