The Basement
Pine paneling with knots
Like the eyes of many owls.
Sheets draping piles of things
Depression Era babies can’t throw out.
Damp smell of books decaying
Bobby Fischer Teaches Chess
Edith Hamilton’s Mythology
Idylls of the King—forgot we had that.
Even Mom and Dad debate about
Who will go down there.
I go to keep the peace
And appease the knees
Then I remember the ghost
Always just beyond my peripheral vision.
I whistle to show it I’m not afraid.
What would we find behind the white-washed
Sepulcher walls of the fruit cellar?
Trilobite fossils locked in limestone?
Human remains cut into roasts?
The ghost blows on the back of my neck
I flip the light switch and
Grown woman or not
I race the darkness up the stairs.