The Top of the Staircase

The Top of the Staircase

(“The people were silent. They didn’t answer the commander at all, because King Hezekiah had ordered, ‘Don’t answer him.’” 2 Kings 18:36)

They were right behind you staring a hole
into your friendships and assumptions;
you could see them from
the top of the staircase shouting, “you’ll fall”.
You could hear them from the second story window yelling
spattered buckshot into the air. They inhabited the lawn
and the ground floor
like evictors without cause.

You checked your forehead for a fever,
your lungs for the next sultry breath. But the invisible
brooded above you, silent in the velvet sky. And their
momentary pause
waited for the universe to be created.
They were fierce as flames, as beautiful as sequoias
mastering the ocean breezes from their inland abode.

You inhaled, about to answer the accusers and present them
with your certificate of authenticity.
And then sighed in your uncertainty;
the silence had descended, a cloud, a flame,
and revealed the crowd was full of comic book
characters
with no dimension at all..