Root Cellar
and grope blind-handed down a cellar-hole—
come, palp through stores of pulp, moon-cratered grist
amid bat guano and the firebrats;
unearth Ball jars that hold untold blue spoors,
which levitate atop soft clots of mold.
Submerse in damp. Now, kiss. Quick silverfish
seep through a kink. Up leaps a flash of fat,
pale moths when you’ve flicked on the dangling lamp,
their shadows angled through a room no brighter
than a catacomb. Late fall’s survivors
of slow, old flies twitch off. Our eyes uncramp
to dilate on one fine black hair—no, a spider,
which sucks back up its line of clear saliva.