The Elevator

By Angel SIngh

Footsteps collide, the city awakes;

Coffee drips down, and the dawn breaks.

She weaves through crowds, scarf widespread.

He rushes to work, the lights scorch red.

Billboards flicker in glitchy light,

Clock hands race as carriages bite.

Strays bark loudly through protest rows,

Clanging bicycles, headlines blow.

No gasp left for “Hi.”

"Excuse me, Cabbie sir, can’t this thing fly?"

“Fifteen more minutes? That’s half my life."

"Just bury me alive."

But there is a place where time ceases.

It’s neither the orchard of Hesperides,

Nor an amber soft bed by Pandora’s sealed thrall;

But the elevator in the mall.

Commuters rush through the corridor’s sprawl,

Merely to halt at the elevator’s stall.

For a moment, they silently stand;

And ponder why they ever fanned.

In Babel’s climb, bartering breath for stone,

Waging war with time to claim the throne

If a pause arrives exclusively when caged,

What shade of emancipation have we staged?

By Angel SIngh