The chip in the frame betrays the gilded
Old wood, once prized by dead insufferable idiots
Fresh dust resides around the exposed edges
Having journeyed light years from under the fingernails, and scalps and bones of strangers
It overshadows everything it protects
I stand
My posture ruminates on a faraway glacier,
unmelted and inaccessible
But is distracted by the ordinary symmetry of burnt orange and a yellowed nicotine bloom
Pasted to the thin walls and paralleled by the sprawling, abrupt corridor,
Carpeted with the footfalls of disquiet
The old iron cage, the mechanical anachronism, breathed through metallic ribs,
pushing baroque air into my tetanised lungs and I’m force-fed the best part of a century
Whilst he gawked, lovingly and stupid, at his hat on the floor
He sat
Framed by the elevator, owned by the job, the needle hovering above his headless hat, deciding
Whilst I’m standing, I’m not going to get into it; I’ll take the stairs
I climb
Each step is a temporal millstone
Grinding my bones to a fine powder
She floats
Her toes sending smug ripples up the stairwell
She’d been there, always, a merry, ghostly confessant, delighting in my descent
My coat unravels into memory
The key is placed beyond my reach
And three callous steps remain
I lie
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