John Biscello

“Gnossienne: A moment of awareness that someone you’ve known for years still has a private mysterious inner life, and somewhere in the hallways of their personality is a door locked from the inside, a stairway leading to a wing of the house that you’ve never fully explored—an unfinished attic that will remain maddeningly unknowable to you because ultimately neither of you has a map or a master key or any way of knowing exactly where you stand.”–from The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows

There,

in the unfinished attic,

where books

have gone unread

for god knows how long

and collected the skin of dust,

you wish to discover

the story that will serve as the key,

or perhaps procure a time-bitten

map from beneath a loose floorboard,

something

that will grant you the means

to travel from the attic to the basement

and back

without moving an inch–

You,

unsure as to whom

the attic belongs

(is it hers? is it yours?)

prepare to court

the pregnant dark

in what may amount

to a confession

or tryst

that no one

will ever hear about

not

in the light of day.