At the Elevator

At the Elevator,
 4:55
9th floor

Lucia beat one fist

against the wire bound glass, screaming

her voice raw with a terror

as vicious as the flames

and as unrelenting.

You promised you would come back

she wanted to cry to the operator, so come back! 

The doors are locked,

for the love of God

come back for us!

But what left her mouth was

Mama!

Through the press of bodies

she stretched out both shaking arms

wrapped in singed and tattered lawn,

searching. Mama had been beside her,

Where are you? She coughed, sucking in

smoke.

There, she touched a familiar arm.

She clung to it,

as though the hand that had soothed fevers

could stop the flush in her cheeks now.

Fire-lit faces seemed all the same 

in the haze, but Lucia picked out one,

five feet off the ground. Her glass heart

shattered.

Lucia kissed her sister's head, smoothed

her curls with one hand.

Madonna mia, not Rosaria, too.

She is so young,

we are all too young

to die here.

We are works in progress,

half-finished shirtwaists,

but she is fourteen.

Around her people screamed

Yiddish, and English

and the Italian of home,

one plea, one cry-

Please, God

I do not want to burn-

the words almost drowning out the roar 

of the flames.

The elevator did not come back,

did not come back

did not come back

The pile of women separated

by faith and language

held each other now.

They were dying here,

Protestant, Catholic and Jew.

No more differences among them, only 

fear, desperation, faith in a better place

beyond smoke and charred flesh.

No one would die alone, but all

in the arms of 

a mother, sister, daughter, cousin,

a friend. There was no room for strangers

breathing in each other's breath

breathing out the same plea:

I do not want to die,

in so many dialects.

Rosaria pressed her face against Lucia's shirtwaist

and Mama pulled them close to her breast

their hearts beating in time.

Prayers offered up in all those

shrill, hoarse voices, never sounded 

so holy as the flames

closed in.