1. The Cellar
Nobody remembers the cellar. Nobody
after Mother wanted the work
of preserving. Used to be jars
were gold and green inside, but gray
things live in them now. Under the hatch
steps pitching down
in secret dark into dark and black smell of earth.
When I heard about the tomb
Lazarus was called out of, I thought
how you feel in the dark
for the light cord. Mother up behind
with the flashlight, making jar-light, fingers
caught in sticky, Mother said cobwebs but
I thought old cloth. I thought the corpse
reaching at me in its sheet.
The cellar was the only place. Secret,
said the angel. Be strong. Your Work is
not for other people’s eyes.
2. Break-In
Two of them. White. Martha
wanted to know. You sure? she asked.
They stood in the bedroom door. Cut
on the light so I had to see them.
White. The naked one. I wanted
not to see. Bag, they called me. Other names
I will not remember. Laughter
like a fire in the barn. I couldn’t speak
not even to beg. But it was
my pocketbook they ripped open,
a pantsuit in the wardrobe.
My spending money,
Mother’s big cameo pin.
Credit cards, and cut the phone line.
I couldn’t speak. Or it would have been
Cellar! Angel! What I couldn’t
utter. The drumming above their cackles.
Now I sleep at Martha’s in town.
Not quite the same as leaving.
My baby sister. The only one stayed
close to take care of me.
And daytime in the house is not the same
as staying. The splintered frame—
door used to could keep it all out. Two. White.
The stain on the floor.