I have always liked fire escapes
Standing by a kitchen window at a party in someone’s apartment
Or a bedroom window of some girl I have recently met
Who smells of soap and shampoo and incense
And some mysterious fourth ingredient
And seeing the rusted metal of a fire escape
I imagine climbing down
I imagine sneaking away into an alley that leads to a different life
That difficult last step:
A ladder that extends downward
A ladder of questionable integrity
Into an alley—the sort of alley they have in movies
Where black cats pop out of garbage cans on cue
And a large rat disturbs the reflection of the moon in a puddle
I imagine the fire escape like that
And imagine fleeing
As if this party or this girl
Actually was a building on fire
