Until you make it.

high scaffolding with blinking beacon lights,

the exoskeleton of what they’ll raise -

an optimistic armature that lays

around its future innards, fitted tight

to something still invisible to sight,

condensing in its shell. on misty days,

or aided by pollution’s cloaking haze

or squinting vantage of a passing flight,

the scaffold borrows the solidity

of neighbor buildings, passes muster, proud -

bright beacons as its epaulettes or crown;

until a shift in light, and all can see

it’s merely lashed bamboo, tarpaulin shrouds,

stacked sticks the slightest touch might tumble down.