Last Elevator Down

Thirty-nine.
Don't press it yet —
don't let this be the last elevator down.

The hum. The click. The floor going soft.
A print of your palm on the mirror where you leaned in to fix your hair.
Somebody's coat forgot on the handrail.
Somebody's whole night finished upstairs.
There's a card in the frame by the buttons
with an inspection date and a stranger's name,
a scuff on the panel at exactly my height
from ten thousand people leaning where I lean,
and a burn in the carpet by the corner
where the smokers used to stand in the rain.
I had a speech worked out on the staircase.
Lost it somewhere around forty-two.
Now there's a brass door, a folded ticket,
a receipt for the drinks, and ninety seconds of you.
The mirror's got us in it twice.
The cable's got us by the throat.
And the little light is walking down the numbers
like it's got somewhere better to go.

The numbers don't negotiate.
They just count what I didn't say.
Thirty-one. Twenty-eight.
Every floor is a door I let close.

Thirty-nine to nothing (down, down)
and your shoes there by the door (down, down)
Say the word — I'll press every button down —
don't let this be the last elevator down.

Going down.
(going down, going down)
Don't let it be the last one.
(going down, going down)
Every floor is a door I let close.
(going down, going down)

Nineteen, and you're humming something old,
the one the radio butchered around two.
Sixteen, and the doors open on nobody,
just a hallway and a vending machine hum.
Fourteen, and you're reading the inspection card
like the date on it has something to do with you.
There's a receipt in my pocket for two waters
and a coat-check ticket for a coat I never brought.
Eleven. You put your hand in mine like it's nothing.
Nine. You don't say anything at all.
Somebody's perfume is still in here
from a floor we already went past.
There's a fingerprint on the number four
that has been there since I started this job.
Eight, and I can hear the lobby coming,
that marble sound, that end-of-everything sound.
Five, and there's a taxi on the glass outside
already sliding up to take you home.
Four, and I have one line left in me
and I'm holding it like a coin.

The numbers don't negotiate.
They just count what I didn't say.
Six. Then four. Then two.
Every floor is a door I let close.

Thirty-nine to nothing (down, down)
and your shoes there by the door (down, down)
Say the word — I'll press every button down —
don't let this be the last elevator down.

Thirty-one.
Twenty-eight.
Nineteen.
Fourteen.
Every floor is a door I let close,
and I am running out of doors.

Lobby.
The doors slide back on marble and a security guard
watching a game on his phone with the sound turned off,
and a woman mopping a floor that is already clean.
And you don't step out.
You reach past me and you press forty.
You press forty.

Nothing to thirty-nine (up, up)
and everything we didn't say (up, up)
Your key card out, you pressed forty anyway —
you didn't let it be the last elevator down.

Going up.

Going up.
(going up, going up)
Not the last one.

Going up.

Going up.
(going up, going up)
Not the last one.

Going up.
(going up, going up)
Not the last one.