The way a man with one leg and a crutch,

Or a little child, comes up. It wasn’t Toffile:

It wasn’t anyone who could be there.

The bulkhead double-doors were double-locked

And swollen tight and buried under snow.

The cellar windows were banked up with sawdust

And swollen tight and buried under snow.

It was the bones. I knew them—and good reason.

My first impulse was to get to the knob

And hold the door. But the bones didn’t try