April 11, 2025The Elevator
This house has an elevator.
It descends down a concrete shaft
To a bomb shelter that was built
When Kennedy was president,
When the idea of actual
Apocalypse, so commonplace
To people now, was still quite new
(To most Americans, at least.
Obviously it’s been around
For a lot longer). Down the dark
Shaft, then a concrete corridor
That takes you to another one—
The crossbar to this buried T—
A slight left turn, and there you are.
It’s not as fancy as it sounds,
Not as elaborate as the word
Corridor, nor as big as bomb,
Might make it out to be. A box
Built underground, basically,
A concrete room with a bare bulb,
The brittle flakes of what might be
Asbestos on the walls, and curled
Diamonds of old linoleum
That scrape and slide beneath your feet,
Loosened by time and the same rain
That got the doorframes (there were two
To start with; one has been removed):
Built for all time, but now no more
Than shapes to cut your finger on,
Rectangles of oxidation
With a dull smell, as of dried blood,
An olfactory illusion.
You’d need at least two, one would think,
To close against the end of time,
To keep the rage and rabble out.
Not to mention radiation.
Rudimentary wooden stairs,
The original entry, climb
Precariously up to light,
Or at least to what would be light,
If the steel-covered heavy door
Would open. It would have to be
Pulled and propped open from above,
You couldn’t push it up yourself,
Hands over head, from down below.
So this was an ordinary
Outdoor cellar, it would appear,
Before the wife became too frail
To navigate those wooden steps,
Devoid of any rise or rail,
Without some threat of a fate more
Insidious than what she fled.
Which is how the elevator,
Concealed in a corner closet
Of the carport like an old mop
Or leftover buckets of paint,
Ever came to be conjured up
In the first place. It would have been
The man’s idea: at first, a fear,
A premonition. Then a plan,
And at last a symbol of love.
A little strange, a little too
Extravagant, but no more so
Than other gifts a man of his means
Might give, and far more practical—
A place to go and a way to get there
When the storm comes, when all goes calm
Suddenly, and the siren blows.
from #87, Spring 2025