You had to walk stealthily. Every footstep echoed,
disturbing emptiness and time. The smells of food
from the kitchen did not reach this high and I scrabbled
among lumber and old clothes, savouring the smells
of chicken bran and the dung and damp walls
of this corner of Santanyí and bad Mallorcan cement.
There were baskets made from bulrushes, bottoms stove-in,
and decorations from many Christmases in a tactful gloom.
The attic was a little world, and I visited it secretly
so as to be far from the land and advice of the grown-ups.
The forbidden land where there were newspapers from years ago
and a yellow library of missals and The Christian Year.
There were also the trophies of an unknown godfather:
the rattle of a rattlesnake, an ostrich egg, the shell
of an armadillo, nameless bones, the remains of a fantastic
bestiary washed-up from across the seas.
Many days, still in secret now, I sneak up to the attic.
I sit in a corner, with my eyes closed, breathe in
the scent of moss, chicken-shit and old rushes.
With hardly any light, my hands stained by yellow dust,
I read papers eaten by moth and by silverfish.
And I forget that it’s years since we demolished it.