A dank half-stair at the back of the house led to the basement door.
The air in the well cooled as it sank, sucking us down.
We always descended solemnly, got married at the bottom.
We never went through the metal basement door
to test our fear of sex, intimacy, unknown future.
The cool air kept us down
and we played bride and groom among the battered leaves.
We struggled up to the warm air of promise, beauty,
fulfillment, giggling, spell broken, into the light.
And raced to the swing set.
Casey FitzSimons is a frequent featured reader at San Francisco Bay Area poetry venues. Her poems have appeared in print and online in The Sand Hill Review, The Newport Review, Hobo Camp Review, EarthSpeak, The Prose-Poem Project, flashquake, Leveler, Astropoetica, and others. She has been a finalist in the River Styx and Writecorner Press poetry competitions and recently honored in the Ina Coolbrith Circle and Maggi H. Meyer 33 competitions. Her chapbooks include Riding Witness (2012) and No Longer Any Need (2011). She has a master’s degree in Fine Arts from San Jose State University.
© 2013, Casey FitzSimons
Halfway Down the Stairs 