As the fireman said:
Don't book a
room over the fifth floor
in any hotel in New York.
They have
ladders that will reach further
but no one will climb them.
As the
New York Times said:
The elevator always seeks out
the floor of the
fire
and automatically opens
and won't shut.
These are the
warnings
that you must forget
if you're climbing out of
yourself.
If you're going to smash into the sky.
Many times
I've gone past
the fifth floor,
cranking upward,
but only
once
have I gone all the way up.
Sixtieth floor:
small plants and
swans bending
into their grave.
Floor two hundred:
mountains with
the patience of a cat,
silence wearing its sneakers.
Floor five
hundred:
messages and letters centuries old,
birds to drink,
a
kitchen of clouds.
Floor six thousand:
the stars,
skeletons on
fire,
their arms singing.
And a key,
a very large key,
that
opens something —
some useful door —
somewhere
—
up there.
(painting by Yvonne Jacquette: Mixed Heights and Harbor from World Trade Center
II, 1998)