The damp comes up from the basement floor

The damp comes up from the basement floor,

a quiet tide that doesn't need a key.

Under the coffee table, the pressboard

has sprouted a colony of velvet white.

It reached for the paperback on the rug,

blooming a gray-green stain across the spine.

The words are still there, I suppose,

but the paper feels like a wet napkin

and the air in the corner tastes like old rain

trapped in a closet for twenty years.