The Basement

dangerous, dank forbidden cellar with wooden doors painted green
the trick to pancake against the house far wall unseen
five year old body like quick silver slid, pulled the heavy tie- rope,
lifted the door and the forbidden staircase appeared in a long down cement lope
tip-toed down those stairs alone,
the world outside a silent drone
hands at sides brushed a web,
shuddered a scream held inside instead
the basement a place of dead things held in abandoned hope,
unseen cast-offs amid more snaky coils of rope
a single slitted window shone - thin light flickering on a corner closet there,
filled with just-in-case provisions our lives to spare,
soup and beans, ketchup, all such common stuff,
breathed a sigh, courage filled, turned having had enough,
when in the glimmering dark appeared a suspended head, grinning teeth,
bulging eyes and no body neath,
set small feet running back up above to slam the door against the dead,
not recognizing until basement cleaning decades later when a relative rhetorically said
I always wondered what ever did happen to that ugly Florida trip carved coconut head.