Lift
Lift
First comes the melding together of steel,
like a modesty curtain.
Then the quaint ding, clinical in its timing.
We stand, suited shoulder to shoulder, boxed in,
absurdly intimate.
The silence that descends is unknown
even in the otherworldly hearing of moths.
Then suddenly it strikes: self-consciousness.
Of course, nothing can be given away, even though
every now and then someone, gauchely, gives in.
We jostle like sheep, the whole process excruciating,
before one or two of us are released.
Their relief can only be theorised.
The doors seal over again, like the mercury surface of a well,
and the rest of us are left, a herd of the living
burdened by the silence of flesh.
How we long for transfiguration.
To be frank, any disappearing trick would do.
There are two symbols, occult triangles up high,
that resemble the Eye of Providence.
One points to heaven, the other to a basement of dust.
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