You lean into the wall -- but keep a respectable distance -- just in case.

Hello?

You take a beat. Maybe this was a bad idea, and maybe you shouldn't have tried talking to the wall because normal people don't just talk to walls but you're not in a normal situation and maybe it was a bad idea to take this risk and maybe this was all stupid and maybe you should have just stayed in your lane and not went to whatever this is because clearly this was a bad idea and now you're in this stupid basement talking to a stupid breathing hole in a wall and you're talking to it because you've clearly lost your mind and maybe your mother was right and doing a BA in Poetry was a bad idea and maybe you should have just been a doctor or a lawyer like your cousins and then you wouldn't be in this evil house in this evil basement talking to a hole in the wall that you haven't yet assigned a label of good or bad to but it's probably going to be evil like everything else, but it probably won't even respond so--


HELLO


WHAT?! That was a very raspy voice, and if we're being totally honest, you didn't expect that to actually work.


Hello?


You knew I was coming for you, little one,
when the kettle jumped into the fire.
Towels flapped on the hooks,
and the dog crept off, groaning,
to the deepest part of the woods.


In the hackles of dry brush a thin laughter started up.
Mother scolded the food warm and smooth in the pot
and called you to eat.
But I spoke in the cold trees:
New one, I have come for you, child hide and lie still.


The sumac pushed sour red cones through the air.
Copper burned in the raw wood.
You saw me drag toward you.
Oh touch me, I murmured, and licked the soles of your feet.
You dug your hands into my pale, melting fur.


I stole you off, a huge thing in my bristling armor.
Steam rolled from my wintry arms, each leaf shivered
from the bushes we passed
until they stood, naked, spread like the cleaned spines of fish.


Then your warm hands hummed over and shoveled themselves full
of the ice and the snow. I would darken and spill
all night running, until at last morning broke the cold earth
and I carried you home,
a river shaking in the sun.


You seem to think that this thing isn't very friendly, and maybe you should leave. This thing is on the other side of the wall, but for how much longer?