Ursula Kiernan
Anne Boleyn Cottage
The cellar fascinates her.
The stone stairs under
the heavy trapdoor
are steep
and winding.
It smells of damp down there.
It’s out of bounds, she’ll get a smack
if she doesn’t look out.
The cellar was once the entrance
to a secret passage
which led to
a man with a big floppy hat
and a Palace.
Janice knows this was all long ago.
The passage is safely bricked up.
She’s explored every inch
of the walls
with her own fingertips.
It’s just coal down there now.
Even so, it brings goose-pimples
out on her skin.
She wets her knickers and silently
howls with fear whenever
she is lucky enough to evade her mother
and creep down to
the one place
that’s strictly forbidden.
Is it the darkness? The flutter
of long-dead bats? The buried feeling?
The going nowhere?
It might be the axe which is kept there
to split logs for the winter.
Or the strong wooden mouse-trap
which easily
slices the head from the body.
She’ll be down there again tomorrow.
Page(s) 72
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