An Escalator Reckoning

All my fathers had gone on down

to face the machine rolling on that uphill chase—

the one that left you sticking on its giant tongue

where footsteps are frozen and hands are locked

and cheeks a-rushing and eyes wide cocked—

So much a-rocking was this boy

and frightened when it was my time

to join the other young.

My special shirt and socks were draped

on folded sheets our mom’s patience shaped

that morning when my reckoning day did come—

the day when all us young males were made

or dragged out spoiled to be slayed—

A day the Mall’s walkway beast

made a feast from so many of us

who did succumb.

The inescapable encounter soon loomed

and heaved the youth toward certain doom,

but I figured any death in me my father could revive,

even if my time was up and number in

when he announced that all his kin

would ride the fiend and never die.

So as long as I was not to cry,

he said I might survive.

My big brother once surpassed it

and went on to live once he outlast it

even when he got his sleeve caught in its pass.

But with that memory of his childhood

long past, I waited for my fate,

and when the platform started moving

I only could anticipate its grinding teeth

upon my sorry ass!

Bigger guys went riding up its jaw

and rose atop intact and all but gnawed,

so I stepped on the track to greet their cheers

and saw them step from its sticky tongue

while still alone, so shaken and strung,

for my dad had left me in its eye

and riding upwards to the sky with a

five-year-old’s fears.

The end was near! but I shed no tear,

so I survived it and disembarked atop.

Very much alive, my innocence sheered,

the beast just disappeared.

NEXT

--Porter Daryl's Poems