Building Renovation

Some of the older buildings in the Twin Cities have been repurposed for other uses. Like the old Pillsbury Mill converted into apartments, and a smattering of antiquated brick and mortar schools into condos. But the original Children's Hospital? 

Building Renovation

Across the freeway

a mere home run away

from the "new" Children's Hospital

stands the old one.

Labs and wards converted to condos.

Juniper plantings, zinnia beds struggle

to soften the structure.

Tell me, who can live there

on units that housed the sickest kids

or in a repurposed operating room?

Does a whiff of phenol cling to lobby walls?

When did sadness first leach

into those dusty, coco bricks shading it gloomy

as a Charles Dickens facade?

And how can the new tenants,

even on the sunniest baseball days, not see?

Marilyn Aschoff Mellor