"Stairs Go Both Up and Down Without Ever Moving"

By stairs, she meant poems.
By up and down she meant tone,
Down dark and up light.
By unmoving she meant
Of permanent value, but
Secretly they're always crumbling.

Inside their molecules, atoms move.
On their collective surfaces, treads
Wear down into soft scuff hollows.
The whole of them twirls around
A planet, a star, a spiral galaxy
Escaping away from all the rest
Into a pointless pointillist solipsism.

But she's right. They're obstacles.
They're accessible accessories
For obligatory African bipeds.
They go up and down without
Ever moving me to tears, damn them.