Basement Places

In each morning's beloved ritual,
Grandpa paused between the gathering
of various pet foods and
the stepping out of doors.
I, loitering in child-sized boots
on cracked back porch linoleum,
watched him descend five cement steps
to a doorway under the pantry window,
saw him disappear, then reemerge
in his everyday armor: long sleeved coveralls
and rubber boots nearly to his knees.

I could stand on the back porch and look
up through the outside panes of pantry window
into a window-ledge vision
(hid from the inside house by boxes),
a world unto itself: place of clouded glass,
old lace curtains, and the rounded, blue-green
forms of old electric line insulators.

And beneath, the basement.

Once, I stepped down there myself,
took in the L-shaped room, the old sink,
and the entrance to the furnace room
housing (family lore suggested) Mrs. Coalmonster.
In the end, it wasn't the monster
but the fleas on my white socks
which quenched my thirst for exploration.

Events, a wise woman once said,
can bring both gift and wound.
And thank God for even the fleas,
said another. It's so, I think,
with our behind and underneath spaces
where breath sticks in the half-light
of shadows and dust.

Fear flecks against my ankles, shame bows
old shelving. The sink is dry, is dirty, and I
distrust, even, my belief. Having lost the strength
of my own faith, I'm left with only
this small excitement leaning
toward what God alone might do.