You failed me today.
You took me like an undertaker
up the preprogrammed elevator,
through four sets of glass doors,
(two photo IDs required), to the
ergonomic black-winged chair.
My portfolio, like an elegy,
could only speak of the past,
a dead language. Kyrie Eleison
no aid against the sifting mesh seat.
Less than the allotted time later,
the box's twisted wire pulley
lowered me to the ground, its
TV screen chattering. I walked
past the floor-to-ceiling poster of
broadcasters toothy as Cerberus.
On Sixth Avenue, January air
snapped blood back in my cheeks
and, when at last train doors
released me, I ran up chipped
concrete steps to my home's
main street, breathing regularly,
dante deo, Black Suit,
you delivered me.
