"Exploring the Attic."

Grandma,

Your note about finding the letter from Grandpa made me think about a poem I once wrote when I was 17. Your upstairs was my inspiration, but I used quite a lot of poetic licence, so bear with me:

"She Is Exploring The Attic"

She steps over an old pile

Of Minneapolis Tribunes

And National Geographic magazines

Onto the rickety stairwell.



The steps with dirty grey paint

Creak.

She brushes a dusty cobweb

Out of her face and steps aside

To miss the ugly brown spider.



A flattened out Marlboro box

Is tucked in the corner

of one step.

She hears a squeak

From somewhere high above

and below her feet

The stairs groan

With each new invasion.



She sees a pale haze of light

Coming through a dirty window.

Another squeak and a

Rattley scratch

To her left makes her

Turn to investigate.



She trips over a stack

Of Archie comic books

And sprawls across

The splintery floorboards.

A dustball invades her nose and

She sneezes.

The cloud of dust clears

And a Bazooka bubblegum wrapper

Settles slowly to the floor.



She picks herself up

And dusts herself off.

Reaching out

In front of her,

She lifts the heavy metal latch

And digs through a trunk

Of old musty clothes.

They are the

Wrong size.



She shuts the lid

With a clunk

And shuffles through

A pack of old letters

With yellowing envelopes

Each addressed to

Ms. Helen Knox, 1935.

A crisp flat fly

Falls to the floor

From between the letters.

They follow closely behind.



She picks up a Nike shoebox cover

And there is an explosion

of white and brown color.

As the air settles

Of the softly fluttering

Cloud,

She sees a small lump

Of feathers and bones

Where the box top had been.



She looks up and shivers

From a draft.

There is a hole

In the window pane

And glass shards scattered about.

She shudders at the mess.



She is done exploring the attic.



Jeana