False alarm

Someone pulled it in the stairwell.

Sirens. Everyone moving.

The landing was crowded

with people in their apartment clothes,

their real faces.

Then nothing. Just us there.

The building didn't burn.

No one told us to leave.

No one told us to go back.

You stood with your hand on the railing,

waiting for someone to make a decision

that wasn't a siren.

The man next to you checked his phone.

A woman coughed.

You all went back upstairs

the way you came down,

except it wasn't the same.

Something had tested you.

Found nothing.