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Judson Evans, USA

Window Washer

It's the job I've always wanted–ladder and chamois, buckets and blades, high above the Monday morning traffic. Before I found this niche, or aerie, I suffered the belatedness of cities, dreams already sub-let, area codes exhausted, every inch pre-strung with webs of wires and clotheslines.

Secure the swing stage, strap the harness, set the controls on "glide"... Who says there's no advancement, no future in my work? Even if there's nothing to show but shine, every day's a branching out, another set of stories to scale. The fluid world flows back beneath my blade. Sometimes I see myself on hands and knees, kneeling in the stream you can't step twice in, the wet skin of sky that floats powerlines and billboards. Only so many practice runs, steady the squeegee, circle rhe wrist for the broad unbroken S-sweep down the glass, then for years it's all patience, entering the distraction, the blur and clear and blur and clear made up of those awakenings when a whole ensemble lies before you like a shiny museum case. You open it and touch everything and nothing can be broken.

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