The shower went lukewarm then a biting sudden chill

The shower went lukewarm, then a biting, sudden chill.

I found the flashlight and took the stairs slow,

down where the air is a different country,

heavy with the scent of wet concrete and silt.

It smells like cardboard boxes that have given up,

their glue softening in the perpetual damp.

There is a hint of rust from the old furnace,

and the slow, sweet rot of a potato left in a bin

back when the seasons actually changed down here.

I reached for the pull-chain, the bare bulb swaying,

casting a circle of yellow on the gray floor.

You can’t hide a house’s history in the attic;

it all eventually leaks down into the dark,

waiting to be inhaled like a dusty, forgotten chore.