Come on up to the attic.
Come up if you dare.
Climb up the rickety ladder—
come up and see what’s there.
A dressmaker’s dummy:
no arms and no head.
A locked black trunk,
an old, broken bed.
Something largish and lumpy,
all wrapped up in a rug.
In every corner a spiderweb,
or a mousetrap or roach trap or bug.
And there’s the old bike
you loved as a tyke.
The wheels are all bent, and it’s rusty.
And here is a box
filled with T-shirts and socks,
all of them moldy and musty.
And it stinks,
and it’s dark,
and it’s dusty.
And from a shadowy corner is gleaming
a pair of cold, mysterious eyes.
And what is that rustling, whispering noise?
A sound that you can’t recognize.
So let’s climb back down from the attic.
Let’s close the door quickly, and then
we’ll bolt the door of the attic,
and never go up there again.