Basement Secrets

A poem

Cereal boxes lined my
grandpa's basement,
with their bright colors
and sturdy cardboard,

Fruit Loops and Corn Pops,
Frosted Mini-Wheats and 
the less favored Raisin Bran,
the coldness and spideriness

of the dirt-walled basement
no deterrent to finding
the hidden bonanza,
not only the sugary goodness

but also the toy prizes
contained in those boxes
in the Golden Age 
of cereals, the 1970s 

(maybe you'd find 
a mood ring),
and my grandpa was 
an otherwise stern

and exacting man,
so his sharing 
his breakfast bounty
with me felt like 

a secret gift,
like he was handing
me adult proprietary
knowledge I'd carry

with me forever,
this knowledge
that a person can
be more than one thing,

can be multi-layered,
can be Russian nesting
dolls all on our own:
a warm, stuffy house

can have a cold 
basement full of goodies;
a strict man who beat
his kids and had a 

gambling problem
could save cereal box
treasures for his
grandchildren; 

and when I found out,
decades later, that I 
carry Neanderthal DNA
deep inside my human

frame, I accepted it 
more readily, knowing 
that we're all like onions,
with our many layers.