Basement Dweller
a poem from Dawn Schout
The house settles, creaks
above her, a restless
sound, constant as a drip.
Two years later
they’re still getting acquainted.
She’s buried under blankets,
everything but her nose and eyes
covered, staring at lighter areas
in the blackness, shapes
by the window, the open door,
objects she knows are there
but can’t see.
So hard to trust in darkness.
Sweet white wine settles
in her stomach, her head
into the pillow.
She listens
to the house’s secrets.
It listens to hers, groans
replies, spills warm breath,
constant and lulling, through the teeth
of the duct above her head
at just the right time.
Dawn Schout won first place in the 2008 Lucidity Poetry Journal Contest, and her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Breadcrumb Scabs, Down in the Dirt, Flashquake, Fogged Clarity, Glass: A Journal of Poetry, and other journals. She lives in Michigan.