Delve by Paul Hostovsky

“I want to go deeper, all the way down to the cellar of the house I grew up in.”

Delve
by Paul Hostovsky

I want to go deeper,
all the way down
to the cellar of the house
I grew up in. I go there
in my head, the same head
that easily cleared the low ceiling
above the dark, narrow staircase,
the lightswitch on the left,
the banister beginning halfway down
on the right, the aluminum nosing
of the treads groaning metallically
as I take the steps one at a time,
counting them as I go: one, two, three,
four, five, six, seven, eight–I think there were
ten altogether, though I could be overshooting it
or undershooting it. I can’t
remember exactly but I can imagine
(imagination is memory) the exact feel
of the newel—small, rounded, wooden—
and the squeak-rub sound it makes
as I grasp it briefly like the hand
of a dance partner and twirl myself around it,
jumping off the last step with a flourish
and landing on the linoleum tiles
of the floor of the basement
of my childhood, the furnace room
(fire-breathing, verboten) to the left,
the laundry room (sweet-smelling, white)
to the right, and one central cylindrical
vertical pole silently supporting everything
above. I put my arms around it
lovingly. I clamp my legs around it
tightly. And I embrace it like a fire pole,
replacing my tight grip with a looser grip
to allow myself to descend.

★ First published in ONLY POEMS ★