Entering the Basement

ENTERING THE BASEMENT

There was a lot more there

than we were, well, aware

of. Much of what he grew 

he canned, unwilling to throw 

away even what no one wanted, 

including himself. He himself had

forgotten what all was stored 

beneath the living room floor 

of the house, where no more 

than a dusty ray slithered

on the chance he cracked 

the door to let us glimpse a dark

as fecund as soil and stretching

deep as a mine, a mind.