Basement II

To put this here, away to the left of the steps
with their warped boards and the third from the bottom
creaking: my errand. The spaces between seen – a fear of falling
through. All the washed TV dinner trays gleaming next to
the canned soup, canned fruit, canned baked beans. As if readying
for onslaught, for apocalypse. And, sometimes, yes, something
akin – the twist of wind, flattening of field. The sky grew
green at least three times. Three times we made our way to
sanctuary, sitting on the one piano stool, though never any piano.
Turning, turning. You would call from the bottom step for him
to not play fool. Fingertip in the dust on the shelf, marking
just how long. 

Kelly R. Samuels

Kelly R. Samuels is a Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net nominee. She is the author of Words Some of Us Rarely Use (Unsolicited, 2019). Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Salt Hill, The Carolina Quarterly, The Pinch, DMQ Review, and The Massachusetts Review. She lives in the Upper Midwest.