amphibi.us

We search the third floor offices
for a trap door, discover it
directly over the dean’s desk.
We prop his chair on the desk and climb
through the trap into a vacancy
littered with antique furniture,
mostly of mellow-grained oak.

How did army surplus steel
displace this sturdy elegance?
You linger at a file cabinet
stuffed with student essays almost
a hundred years old. Your face
with its pink scholarly aura
illuminates the unheated air.

As we marvel at the penmanship
a groaning from the furthest corner
frightens us. I point my flashlight
and spear a ghost hunkered over
a metal box big as a coffin.
I recognize from a portrait
the beard who founded the college.

As he fades in the dusty light
you cross the attic and lift the lid
and find the metal box filled
with unsold copies of textbooks
written by that weepy old ghost.
He published and then perished
as we all eventually do.

So what have we learned? Descending
through the trap, we agree to request
a crew to recover two oak desks
and file cabinets to adorn
our offices, and to shelve those books
in the library, where the ghost
can browse, mourning in better light.

© William Doreski, 2010

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