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.

Identified

March 26th 1911

Temporary morgue

Rose knew.

Of course she knew.

The whole city had seen the flames,

had seen the men and women sobbing,

had seen the sons and daughters leaping

their clothing on fire as they struck cement.

But she had hoped.

Oh, God, she had hoped.

It was Shabbat and he was going

to see her after sundown.

She waited and prayed,

and when he didn't come, she knew.

Of course she knew.

They led her through the room,

filled with bodies blackened

or twisted,

bones at every angle.

Some had parents

brothers, cousins

children

weeping over them.

Some were alone

as people filed past.

Box 34.

It was the ring that caught her eye

like the one on her finger. She took the hand--

what was left of a hand

and she knew.

The body was nothing like her Joseph

charred beyond recognition.

Oh, God, she would never kiss his lips.

Her breath caught in her lungs

and she tasted ash,

could feel heat on her skin.

The screaming that had echoed in the square

echoed in her ears.

She stared at what was left

of his face.

"Joseph," she said

when the attendant asked who he was.

"Oh, God, he was only twenty-two."

The man nodded, wrote

something on a tag.

"His watch, do you have his watch?"

He nodded, and handed Rose a box.

Fitting, his last tie to home would be

her last tie to him.

She cradled it in her hands, pulled out

his pocket watch, all he owned of value,

and opened it, gently, as he had.

The glass was cracked

the hands unmoving

and from the opposite side beamed her face.

Like glass, her heart splintered.

She sank to her knees, sobs tearing at her throat,

and understood wanting sackcloth and ashes.

She wanted to keen her grief to the heavens. 

She wanted to rip her shirtwaist and wail

How could this happen?

Oh, God, we were to be married in June.

Last

I was the Last
and am Last no longer.
Do not blame yourself, Magician,
no, you have not wronged me.

Not one of my sisters was born
who could feel what I have felt:
Regret, yes, but Love, too,
the aching in the breast.

I know regret,
but do not weep on my account
for I could not weep now if I wished.
No, please know- you have done me  no evil, in
changing me from unicorn to woman.
Had you not, I would have been driven to the Sea
and languished there with my sisters
 for the eternity we live.

And- more, I never would have known Love;
never tasted of mortality.
That I do not regret-only the leaving,
but I do not blame you for that either.
If you had listened to me
and let the quest end there,
in the middle of my tale
there would have come a day when I
welcomed death,
and there would have been no more unicorns in the world
how bleak a world would that have been!

I must go now,
rejoin my Glory
in the silver Lilac wood.
Must return to the rabbits and the deer.
I thank you, Magician. Truly, you have changed me
forever, but not for ill.
because of you I am the Last no longer,
and when all this world has faded away,
 I will remember Lir, and Molly Grue--
and you.
There is your immortality,
the love of a unicorn.

Dancing on coals

Dancing on coals-
4:50
9th floor.

The cutter boy extends his hand

callused from working with heavy shears

since the shops reopened a year gone.

Flames are in his dark eyes,

“Gussie, here.”

I can hardly breathe, so I only nod

and take his hand.

Morris leads me into a dance, wild, and racing

I have to catch up the hem of my skirt

so as not to fall and be trampled.

Things are too crowded by the doorways:

no room for two more bodies there.

My breath catches in my throat,

the clamor is growing,

the windows are all open to dusk-grey air.

My shoes are too small and not made

for dancing on coals.

My feet burn as I stumble.

“Morris, I need air, I need—out.”

There are bonfires in his eyes, his face is glowing

and he nods, still holding my hand.

As we push through to one window

where the air is cooler,

he helps another girl up onto the ledge,

then another,

so they can breathe as well.

I raise a hand to his cheek,

my feet are burning and now my eyes as well.

I have only known him for this year,

when he delivered shirtwaists to my table.

But I want to be beside him

and he knows without saying.

He bows, then helps me to stand,

my hands shaking,

in the window frame.

I put my arms around him,

and kiss him long

longer than we have.

The flames behind us are growing.

My eyes find his, and

he lets me go, then follows me.

It does not take a long time to fall to the ground

even from nine stories up.