THE WALL CABINET

By John Gould Fletcher

Above the steep back stairs

So high that only a ladder can come to it,

There is a wall cabinet hidden away.

No one ever unlocks it;

The key is lost, the door is barred,

It is shut and still.

Some say, a previous tenant

Filled its shelves with rows of bottles,

Bottles of spirit, filled with spiders.

I do not know.

Above the sleepy still back stairs,

It watches, shut and still.