Skull Room

don't remember
being scared
there
in the skull room
where
i went to look for watering can
feed flowers on grandfather's grave
there
in the skull room
where
wooden cubbies  cob-webbed
held single skulls 
along wall vaulting fifteen-feet high
in wet alcove
side a centuries-old church
top a steep hill
with three cemetery rings concentric
but
my five years
could not
understand
the skull room
where
next day
i thought i ought
return
so walked
one mile at five years
along dirt road
alone
back
to the skull room

to look for a shovel
for grandfather's grave.

Giancarlo Malchiodi returned home from fifth grade one day and proclaimed to his mother “I want to be a teacher!” Spending thirty years happily sparking the creativity of many young minds as a high school teacher of English, he is now re-igniting his own. A graduate of the MFA program at Brooklyn College/CUNY where he studied with Allen Ginsberg, Giancarlo’s poetry has been featured in A Gathering of The Tribes, Oberon Poetry Magazine, The Paterson Literary Review, Streetlight, and The Nimrod International Journal. His essays and photographs have likewise been featured in Teachers & Writers, Panorama, and The Emerson Review. When not travelling, reading/writing, absorbing news and pop culture, or scanning the skies for Superman, Giancarlo wanders to rediscover NYC or explores 125+ feet undersea as a DiveMaster.