Tobacco tar walls,
Resin ceiling,
Dun carpet floor -
all receding -
creased receding
to the elevator door -
and the doors -
the doors - the endless
doors repeating.

I drop a penny.
I squat but it's tails.
I look up at a girl
looking up.
Her hair is black,
tangled comely.

She has a chocolate smear
on her right cheek,
Her uncertain teeth
bared in child's
glee and caked with it.

She wears a mustard
blouse stained canary
and her pants are
frayed at the ankles.

Her eyelids are ticking
ticking the flickering light
She says,
"The light turns everything yellow
and nobody picks a bad penny,
that lift only goes down."

She says her name is Mara,
"Mara will be around."