Delaney's Ascent

Delaney laboured and wheezed up fourteen flights of stairs; The block elevator was locked down again In snarls of singing, zinging wire and Squealing cogs and pulleys, all rusted In sooty shafts of drip-dripping water. No matter how much bellicose, reactionary stabbing And jabbing of buttons with digits took place The mother was dead to the world. And so, too, was Delaney upon reaching the top of fourteen flights; He keeled rigid and pale, maybe a touch blue (Especially about his tight foam-flecked lips as they pursed and sucked in silent paralysis). Poleaxed amidst rolling cans and tumbling oranges, Free of brown paper grocery bags dropped To polished hardwood, as cable-cut elevators Succumbing to gravity. People said of Delaney, in that knowing way they talk of the dead, He was always impatient and stubborn cursed with A ruthless streak and a single-minded agenda Of implacable resolve, unflappable will. That he should have waited for the repair guy, you know?. Me, I think he was just tired, hungry and dying of something. Just wanting to make it home. Just like you or I or anyone would, At any given moment in time.