You are right, of course. But I did not have a really good way of applying the axial pressure required to bring the joint back together again.

A future project of mine is to replace all the wire shelving in our guest bedroom with a nice wood version. For replacements for what the clothes actually hang on, I have always used metal pipe stock, like that used with pipe clamps. Not very good looking, but they come in black now.

Some of this metal wire stuff fell from the wall once, and even though it was not made of wood like yours, I’ll bet the scene was similar.