Having lived so long without one, we forgot
what a basement felt like—how it seemed
to the carrier(s), to the inhabitant(s),
the structure(s), that there was an underneathness
to all that daily interaction and exchange—
i.e. an empty teacup hovering just above a pool.
On the day the basement was delivered
pink air made its way underneath the canopy.
Ten strong women arrived to pump it through the ground,
evicting domestic earthworms, telepathic moss
and scarce minerals. An important rivulet was rerouted.
The sub-story attached and crystallized like in that dream.
The whole procedure only took a few minutes.
In the presence of a basement, our history was whisked,
indexed into a ladder, roped down—our kidneys and lungs
wrung out. We stood around slowly. We were cooled
and stored. In the parlor, at first blush of waking,
our usual words and arrangements seemed normal enough,
but then that lower sound, that kept air, funneled up to us.
A collection freed itself. It was again again. Leave no stone already.
