Escalator

A dolorous chant impaled;
the semblance of the past reached for incipient balance.
They sang en masse in sanctum,
but no one else could hear their war;
no one else could heal their war.

He stepped black shoed onto the metal
legs separated then at soldier’s attention.
He descended with intrepidity,
but the other, bludgeoned by song.
The tune played fetid hope gone awry
once a sight of beautiful darkness,
so that light’s fury could not puncture it.
But the morose phantasmagoria faded and blended into him.
It would not survive embodied alone;
it would kill to be embodied alone.

The shell, half carcass half hope, looked;
his eyes locked and circled the Colombian serendipity
like a ravenous eagle to prey. He closed his eyes and prayed.
But supernal intervention had run out of time,
and even a god’s voice would hum sotto voce to the song.
Triumph before withering belonged to this atelier,
and its hand would be held in witness
as quiescence mutes his life.
This is the rejoinder he dreamed;
That was the rejoinder he sought.

After twelve seconds of ebb he joined him,
He and the Colombian stepped onto the rise of metal,
backs turned and arms stretched on rail
like a chain linked fence made of moist, tender flesh
from the decline that divided one.
I looked down at the top of his rotted bite;
his smile tried to cozen me.
That would be the laugh I kiss;
that would be the final laugh I live.