The Basement Door
I painted it shut in the first year we moved in,
three coats of latex over the jamb and the pin
of the deadbolt that I locked from this side of the frame.
The basement has its own weather, its own separate claim
on the temperature that seeps through the floorboards at night,
a cold that has intention, a cold that feels right
only if you are the kind of thing that lives in wet cement
and breathes the mineral dark and knows exactly what it meant.
I found the paint chipped off in flakes beside the kitchen mat,
curled like fingernails, each one precisely where I sat
my morning coffee down, as if the basement door had peeled
itself in increments, each layer surgically revealed.
The deadbolt had retracted half an inch inside the strike,
not broken, not forced open, just moved back as if in spite
of every precaution, every coat of paint and lock,
the door had simply decided it was tired of the block.
I have not been down since the first week.
The light went out.
Something reshuffled itself in the far corner.
My legs took the stairs two at a time.
The cold sweat on my neck ran.
Every cell said leave.
The basement door is opening again.
The paint has cracked along the seam, the deadbolt thin,
and whatever lives below has been patient with the latch.
The basement door is opening and nothing is attached
to the other side but darkness and the smell of standing rain
and something at the bottom of the stairs that knows my full terrain.
The basement door is open.
The dark is here to stay.