April 21: An Improvement in Stairs
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Martha
Apr 21, 2025, 9:17:34 PMApr 21
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An Improvement in Stairs
Mairead Small Staid
Through the oculus of the bus terminal at Boston’s South Station, light falls
for a hundred feet. A shock, a god, a pillar of light, like that of the Pantheon
if the Pantheon had a McDonald’s, a Dunkin’ Donuts, surly young workers
at the Greyhound desk, & an escalator rising to its height—
just like it, that light. A patent for an early escalator called it an improvement
in stairs. An improvement, surely, how I’m standing still & still, somehow,
going up & up & up. My favorite patents are the ones Houdini sought for tricks
never performed: a block of ice he would leave whole, a box within a water-filled box
he would escape from dry. (I should mention: at least one thing in this poem is a lie.)
I can disappear, too: from one place, from another. There’s nothing quite as nice
as leaving, when you’re in the mood. There’s nothing quite as nice as coming back.
Years ago, I stood beneath the Pantheon & thought how beautiful, how sublime,
how like the bus terminal at South Station, if it had a Dunkin’ Donuts.
During the war, Houdini offered to teach soldiers headed to the front
how to escape torpedoed vessels, German handcuffs. As a kid
in Appleton, Wisconsin, he’d dreamed of playing baseball—
the stage of the stadium, the long fly making its escape.
The way there is a place in the game called home
& the goal is to get there
again & again.
Mairead Small Staid
Through the oculus of the bus terminal at Boston’s South Station, light falls
for a hundred feet. A shock, a god, a pillar of light, like that of the Pantheon
if the Pantheon had a McDonald’s, a Dunkin’ Donuts, surly young workers
at the Greyhound desk, & an escalator rising to its height—
just like it, that light. A patent for an early escalator called it an improvement
in stairs. An improvement, surely, how I’m standing still & still, somehow,
going up & up & up. My favorite patents are the ones Houdini sought for tricks
never performed: a block of ice he would leave whole, a box within a water-filled box
he would escape from dry. (I should mention: at least one thing in this poem is a lie.)
I can disappear, too: from one place, from another. There’s nothing quite as nice
as leaving, when you’re in the mood. There’s nothing quite as nice as coming back.
Years ago, I stood beneath the Pantheon & thought how beautiful, how sublime,
how like the bus terminal at South Station, if it had a Dunkin’ Donuts.
During the war, Houdini offered to teach soldiers headed to the front
how to escape torpedoed vessels, German handcuffs. As a kid
in Appleton, Wisconsin, he’d dreamed of playing baseball—
the stage of the stadium, the long fly making its escape.
The way there is a place in the game called home
& the goal is to get there
again & again.
--
Today in:
2024: April Morning, Jonathan Wells
2023: What I Did Wrong, Marie Howe
2022: This Morning, Jay Wright
2021: Kiss of the Sun, Mary Ruefle
2020: Teaching English from an Old Composition Book, Gary Soto
2019: Easter, Jill Alexander Essbaum
2018: Annunciation, Marie Howe
2017: The Promise, Marie Howe
2016: In the Woods, Kathryn Simmonds
2015: Heat, Jane Hirshfield
2014: What Remains, Ellery Akers
2013: 30th Birthday, Alice Notley
2012: Untitled [I closed the book and changed my life], Bruce Smith
2011: The Forties, Franz Wright
2010: Prayer of the Backhanded, Jericho Brown
2009: A Primer, Bob Hicok
2008: Because You Asked about the Line between Prose and Poetry, Howard Nemerov
2007: Open Letter to the Muse, Kristy Bowen
2006: A Sad Child, Margaret Atwood
2005: The Crunch, Charles Bukowski
2024: April Morning, Jonathan Wells
2023: What I Did Wrong, Marie Howe
2022: This Morning, Jay Wright
2021: Kiss of the Sun, Mary Ruefle
2020: Teaching English from an Old Composition Book, Gary Soto
2019: Easter, Jill Alexander Essbaum
2018: Annunciation, Marie Howe
2017: The Promise, Marie Howe
2016: In the Woods, Kathryn Simmonds
2015: Heat, Jane Hirshfield
2014: What Remains, Ellery Akers
2013: 30th Birthday, Alice Notley
2012: Untitled [I closed the book and changed my life], Bruce Smith
2011: The Forties, Franz Wright
2010: Prayer of the Backhanded, Jericho Brown
2009: A Primer, Bob Hicok
2008: Because You Asked about the Line between Prose and Poetry, Howard Nemerov
2007: Open Letter to the Muse, Kristy Bowen
2006: A Sad Child, Margaret Atwood
2005: The Crunch, Charles Bukowski
+ Today's poem: An Improvement in Stairs, Mairead Small Staid
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