#126: August 27, 2006

The door's been locked for over fifty years,
and boards warped over windows shut out light
like fingers meshed to shield her from a sight
that, admitted, would demand screams or tears.
Cobwebs, of course, adorn like Spanish lace
the corners of these long-forsaken rooms;
but even those weavers have left their looms
dust-choked and still. The decades' damp embrace
springs mold on curtains, spots bedsheets like ink
and floods to sagging ceilings its dank smell
unsensed save by itself. A stale wind blows
through cellar doors and rises through the chinks
in floors. What else rises no one can tell,
and if a spirit walks here, no one knows.