Standing in the Elevator
Pratt, Minnie Bruce
Poem Standing in the Elevator There's the awkward moment when the elevator doors close, and we try not to breathe as loud as the big animals we are. No words, because there's too much to say and...
...When I was out of work, and some guy at a stoplight asked to clean my windshield for a dollar, I thought of that...
...That's what we want to do...
...We know how to make things with each other...
...No words, because there's too much to say and nothing for our hands to do except punch the down button again...
...He jimmied the doors open, he forced the steel doors apart, in the vague light from the windows five people could see enough to find their way out...
...Sure, we're in here because we need the money but it means nothing by itself...
...You can see more of her work at www.mbpratt.org...
...I thought I'd never hear our niagara of sound going up the stairs again, or step, immersed, into tens of thousands rushing to work...
...One molecule in the many, carried along toward the purpose of our day...
...The cleaning guy had just his bucket and a squeegee blade...
...It's never really about the money, except for the guys at the top...
...Minnie Bruce Pratt Minnie Bruce Pratt is a writer and white Southern anti-racist, anti-war activist...
...We don't need some fancy research to tell us how we want to be together, standing over a table strewn with puzzle pieces, lifting one jagged edge to fit against another, to match the piece of blue sky you just made...
...Like the day the power failed, some of us stuck in the elevator, and the building burning from the top down...
...They know how to make the money...
Vol. 71 • January 2007 • No. 1
