Stairs

My heart is a steel chamber
Rusted and vast,
An abandoned silo
Made of distressed metal.

Ambient light makes its way below
Twists and turns, winds
Navigates a desert of arteries
Wanders eroded tributaries of veins
Meets entropy in darkness.
Companion to cast-iron stairs,
A bannister careens like a metal snake
Between elevator shaft walls,
They corkscrew up together and hang in the air.

I traverse the concourse of my heart
Slow feet on the stairs,
Climbing towards the light.
Air shakes with deep echoes
Metal walls tremble
 Like the deliberate pounding on a distant door
Or thunder heard from deep underground.
The slow pulse of my march
Makes a rhythm of reverberations.

Yet in silent moments,
The sound of a violin drifts from below.