Basement Apartment
Feb 7 2008


When the thieves broke in
they found nothing worth stealing.
They even left the wine
— lovers of white, perhaps;
but more likely, not worth carrying.
Apparently,
I live in a neighbourhood
where wine snobs do break-and-enters.
According to the police
not much of a crime.
Look for a frozen tennis ball, he insisted
when I phoned it in,
maybe kids
. . . a broken window
. . . road hockey delinquents.

That’s how it is
when you live in a basement apartment
— people assume you’d be upstairs
if you had a shred of self-respect.
Down here
where the windows are narrow slits
peeking-up from ground zero,
and I scurry about like a sightless mole
memorizing where the joists are low,
and I uneasily co-exist
in a cold war with mould.

But living underground
suits my temperament
— the dark intimate spaces,
the cool earth
enclosing me like a fortress,
the furnace
rumbling its warmth.
Down here
I can withdraw from the race,
shut-out the harsh light of day,
and settle
into my body’s own innate rhythm.
I have become subterranean,
pale, almost blind;
oblivious to the raucous tempers
the stomp of footsteps
the sound of sex,
overhead.

And no longer do I fear
what happens after death.
The cool dirt
shovelled-down on my supine body.
The earth closing-in, wrapping me tight.
The constant temperature,
the absence of light.

And up above, the distant thud of road hockey warriors,
using my plot for a crease
and the headstone as goalpost.