My Basement Is a Wishing Well

by AYDEN SCOTT

flies scouring
the scene
for
some semblance of
a feast

unwary of the tower
of resin

a museum
filled
with the cadavers
of fruitless explorers

suspended
in animation of forever
leaping forward.

I inherit their ambition,
their fateful motions

as I descend
towards the den
that death has founded.

My basement
is a wishing well

it’s damp with an ever-present
scent of something sour

holding laundry hostage
in a dryer
that refuses
to fucking dry.

Piles of last Summer’s load
hold the memories
of late nights spent

swimming in lake michigan
with a beer in my hand
and a speaker in the Other.

There’s a sock from last year
somewhere in there too
I just don’t know where.

My basement
is a wishing well

some swear it’s haunted
and I know it to be true!

Because when the pipes groan
it sounds like the damned
calling out from below

and sometimes,
when the bulb flickers,
I see things that aren’t there.

Summer selves
still wet with
lakewater

a version of me
that feels like a phantom.

I’m telling you
my basement is a wishing well

It is a ritual of sacrifice
baring the cold damp cavern
of the least loved part of your habitat.

Carrying this basket of clothes
through the ugly
through the sour
through the remnants of last summer

and coming back up
to the land of the living
with exactly what you needed

clean enough
dry enough
good enough

to survive next week.