Vestibuled,
my feet leave prints in pewter-toned dust—
cindered ash and scratchcard foils—
my nostrils sense the fusty fumes of new paint and Raid
as two moths tackle the shadeless bulb overhead.
Peeking through spider web-cracked gaps
in pebble-orbed hammered glass—
a photographic impact point of some disappointed,
drunken lecher’s fist, perhaps, older than I, perhaps—
I stretch ear bones against the cacophonies cities birthe,
which play in concert with the steadily plopping,
steamy summer rain–rain that throttles midday
Johnson Street behind me, thwarting attempts
to detect the specter that inhabits the empty space
beneath the staircase.
Every silhouette bends vacant beams of darkness,
is warped by phantasmagoric creatures, inch-long
shadow figures which form from nothingness
to gambol atop the pane’s leathery beads, glaring,
crimson-eyed, lidless, their pancake chins wearing
moon-rind grins, their pointy teeth cratered by cavities,
white flecks of still-warm flesh mortared between them.
The Hag of 1A–whose slobber-dappled cheeks
so often flap and jiggle flaglike with vehement
squalls of self-propelled ancient youthful angst,
bough-arms fruitlessly flailing melted muscles
floorward, her periwinkle nightgown
a ghoulish shroud, askew–is absent
from her lobby post, her metallic walker,
shod in tennis balls, a hound eager to animate,
to chase latchkey boys three flights upstairs,
now propped beside the newel post, abandoned.