She waited under the stairs, in the basement air,
where I learned to feel and see without the dark’s
consoling proofs, to know that something there
persisted, even when it left no mark.
She held me tightly to the ground;
I complied with duties she made known.
The secrets that she found
were laid on me and carried as my own.
I drifted to her daily, down the damp steps,
and found a love in her remorse—
a thing I could not find within myself,
or divine its origin or source.
There she lay in the old air, suspended quietly
in webs beneath the stairs, whispering to me.