Eric Ashford Poet Free verse

Walk Down

The basement is now a walk-down bistro.
I was told about the new use.

I dream now of yellow caterpillars on green leaves,
and green caterpillars on yellow leaves,
of the flake of flock wallpaper peeling in the night
the walls rustling with indwellers.
There are shadows rats, they molt
then by the dim light of dawn
are only bones under my mattress.

I wonder about that Bistro
does it close at 2 or 3 in the morning,
does it then rattle unseen
with the echoes of an asthmatic angst,
does it bloom with the bilious foliage
of wheezing lungs?

I can imagine its catchpenny lights,
its frontage blinking 
with blue and yellow neon,
an electric fizz spitting statically.

I am at the table near the restroom
ready to run into the mold riddled closet
to shiver away hours of candle lit 
psychosomatic creeps.

The patrons seem to be laughing 
loudly at nothing at all,
my parents are screaming louder
just to be heard
they smash their words through slamming doors.
One shouts about never returning
but we all did, just at different times
when the clocks were changed to heartbeats.

I look out of the window,
there is no window - was no window
not to look out of
not to see clearly through 
when the dank dark crawled forward 
on its hundred and one legs.

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