The Slumber Party

On a Friday night in June, we rounded the corner past the elevators,
floors thick with dented wax
and walls thick with beige over blue
over beige over blue.
There’s a minor blaze to keep us on our toes, said a nurse
whose edgy bucktoothed laughter guided her in step with an empty wheelchair.
And so I had seen the old man shuffle downstairs,
throwing lit Camels in the bathroom sink –
which was really a pleather recliner –
and how they caught and smoldered a moment
before their flames jumped to the over-painted sill,
framing the dirty glass reflection of flecks, specks of dirt, and remnants of spring grime
into one cloacal conflagration.
I had seen,
but said nothing –
lightly jumped from one pale green tile to another,
the grownups following behind.
In the room below the window, the flashing lights twirled and slanted red and blue up to me
in the outlined
EXIT
shining dusky at my feet.
Slamming doors, switches thrown –
and now –
no way out.

The orange sun made a final drop as this jump was contemplated.

Pushing the window out of its bed of sticky paint and pollen,
there is a rush of early summer chill
quickly depositing a deepened musk of fire under the edges of my nostrils,
a mist of hose-sprayed water on my flushed forehead.
Measuring the distance in confidence, I assume the best,
knowing my sleeping bag is curled and twined in the station wagon, waiting.
Who will survive?
I will. I will.