Visitant
       

The little building, built on a slope,
sits on piers, I use the space
beneath it for storage, and I can tell
by the sound of the steps
of whatever it is that's down there
this late afternoon—walking around,
taking shelter from the snow—
not only exactly where it is

but what it's stepping on as it goes.
The shelf of spare lumber,
the rack that holds the chainsaws;
firewood, buckets of snow-melter,
roofing tar, polymeric mortar.
A retired charcoal grill. Whatever it is, it is,
it seems, unaware of me up here,
and I don't mind it down there.

The snow's approaching 30 inches deep,
it's eleven degrees. The problem is,
I have to pee, which will require not only
rolling my chair away from the desk
but walking across the way to the door
and then out onto the little covered porch,
then across the porch to the urinal.
The urinal's made of transmission fluid funnel

that drains into a length of decommissioned
garden hose and down into a shallow rock well.
I hate the unsightliness of yellow snow.
But I also hate to disturb whatever it is.
Whatever it is it's moderately small, or not large—
raccoon, porcupine, maybe a marten, a badger,
even possibly (and this would be miraculous)
a wolverine, an animal I've seen only once

in my life. The problem is, my life
at this point means that when I have to pee
it is not in my interests to put it off,
and I've been putting it off for quite a while,
distracted as I listen (there it is among the buckets;
there on the lumber, there among the chainsaws),
but I'm hardly distractable anymore
and approaching, oh, mildly desperate,

squirming a bit in my chair, finding it harder
to imagine where whatever it is is,
until, muttering "Sorry, friend," I go ahead
and stand, and walk to the door
and go outside and walk across the porch
and stand before the urinal and unzip
and let loose and in the process heave
a loud human sigh of relief, all the while

listening, wondering which way whatever it is
will go, though now I wonder if
it will go, or if, as I had done inside, it will
hunker down, get very still,
and wait. Even after I'm done
and zipped up, I wait too, standing
and listening and hearing nothing but the tick
of snow on the porchboards, a mild breeze

through the trees, a snowplow out on the highway.
Has it already run? Has it left a path
through the snow? I go to the stairs
and descend three of seven steps
and crouch down to look. Nothing
on the shelf of spare lumber or among the buckets,
nothing nestled among the chainsaws.
But then I see it, or see its eyes, at least.

Whatever it is, it is crouched atop the firewood,
tucked between the floor joists
exactly at the place above which
the woodstove burns and must warm
if only by a few degrees the sub-floor there.
It is black, I think, in the dim light, and fitted so snugly
into the space between the joists it has no shape,
it appears to be a 10-by-16 inch rectangular animal

of very dark, possibly black, fur, a shiny black nose
and gleaming black eyes, looking at me.
Probably it's the cold that makes me shiver.
I'm coatless, in a T-shirt and jeans,
wearing a pair of old house slippers.
"What are you?" I ask, and whatever it is
does not blink. Then I say, "Forgive me,
sorry to bother you, please stay.

I just wish I knew what you are."
And though I do not know what it is,
I rise and go back inside
and toss another piece of firewood in the stove.
When I leave as evening's coming on,
whatever it is will be gone,
and though I will have listened,
I will not have heard it go.

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Copyright © 2020 Robert Wrigley All rights reserved
from River Styx
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission