New poem: Escalator

I got on a down escalator at a station

and I remember thinking it was

a bit strange that I was the only person

on it, I noticed an ad for kiwi fruit. I

was thinking that’s the first time I’ve

ever seen an ad for kiwi fruit on the

walls of the escalator and at that

moment I looked ahead to the part

of the escalator where you get off,

where there’s a big metal plate

that you walk on to, off the end of

the escalator.




But it wasn’t there. There was no

metal plate. There was just a gap.

A dark space.




I had my bag with me. In it was the

dish I had when I was a baby, the one

with a rim round it. And some papers with

stuff that I had written or was going to

write or had forgotten to write. Looking

ahead at the dark space felt like looking

down a corridor, as if I was at school,

the times I was sent out of class and sat

outside.




Towards the bottom, I remembered there

was the alarm. I thought for a moment

that I might press it. A bell would ring

very loudly and the escalator would

stop. By the time I had thought this I was

past it.




At the bottom I felt myself going over an edge.

I was in mid-air, floating with the bag.




I heard someone shouting.




Then I landed. I landed on someone.

No, I think it was two people.