The Secret Life of the Closet

When I was nine years old, my parents moved us to a place out in the country, to a house made of rock on acres of woodland. It was a private park in the oak-shaded hills, surrounded by walnut groves and almond orchards (that’s an almond tree blooming on my header).

The place was called Resthaven. In the summers, we filled the enormous blue concrete pool and stocked the snack bar, and people came in droves for pool parties and picnics. In the autumn, we drained the pool and harvested almonds and walnuts. In the winters, rain brought the wild grasses that turned everything green, and we explored the woods, discovering a treehouse in a big old live oak that became ours. I named my blog after that treehouse. In spring, we ran through blooming orchards and made forts in tall wild oats.

Being the only girl, my room was a tiny one off the kitchen that had a matching tiny closet lined with unfinished sheetrock. On its back wall, I drew the control panel of a spaceship complete with steering wheel and there I would sit cross-legged, taking many voyages.

To ride TFE’s Poetry Bus this week, our driver NanU, the Science Girl Traveler, told us to change our usual writing environment. Something reminded me about that closet, so I took my pad and pen into my current closet and wrote this:


The Secret Life of the Closet

In the mind of the closet, memories are clothes
with soft edges, hung neatly in rows,
soundproofing the space. With the door closed
shouts don’t penetrate the padded stillness
of its thoughts. The closet can be a closet
with two hands tied behind its back, so it dozes
until the girl comes in.

It wakes with the snick of the opening door
and waits for the click of the closing door
before it greets the little elfin girl
with a shiver of its clothes. In the dark
she doesn’t notice. She squats on the floor
and sniffles for a time while the closet
leans against her like an old dog.

When the girl flicks on her flashlight
the closet rejoices with a subsonic hum.
When she parts the clothes and wades
on her knees through the jumble on the floor,
it’s waiting for her in the far corner,
a portal of light within a crude pencil sketch
on the wall. Every scribbled knob and gauge
glows on the dashboard of the craft. She takes
the wheel and soars away.

When someone looks in later, the jumble
on the floor in the far corner lies undisturbed
and the dark closet smiles.