The Elevator Man Adheres to Form

Not really the elevator man at Newberry Library

I am reminded, by the tan man who wings the elevator

of Rococo art. His ways

are undulating waves that shepherd and swing us

cupid-like from floor to floor.

He sweethearts us with polished pleasantries, gallantly

flourishes us up and up. No casual “Hi”s from him.

His greetings, Godspeedings display his Ph D aplomb.

And I should feel like a cherubim

All Fleur-de-lis and pastel-shell-like, but instead

I vision other tan and deeper much than tan

early Baroque-like men who (seeing themselves still strut-

lessly groping, winding down subterranean grottoes of injustice,

down dark spirals) feel

with such tortuous, smoked-stone grey intensity

that they exhale a hurricane of gargoyles, then reel into them.

I see these others boggling in their misery

and wish this elevator artisan would fill his flourishing form

with warmth for them and turn his lettered zeal

toward lifting them above their crippling storm.

Notes:

From To Flower (Hemphill Press First Edition, 1963).

This work is part of the portfolio “‘These Blazing Forms’: The Life and Work of Margaret Danner” from the March 2022 issue.

Source: Poetry (March 2022)