This was off some tributary
of a dirt road, a day excursion,
nine of us and the driver
before a gash in the earth
covered up by brush,
so I never would have seen it,
couldn’t find it again.
Hunched before its mouth,
we listened as our guide said
dangerous, hard hats,
head lamps, stick together
because it could take days
to find you. Of course bats,
so guano, and tight spots
you’ll wriggle through.
It will be colder than July.
At times, the ceiling drops.
In, I considered the weight
of rock and dirt, the sunlit
trees leafing on top of me,
their long roots digging
down to me. I thought of this
often. Thought better of being
ass and elbows underground.
Then disconcerting beauty
everywhere. Unnumbered
stalactites and stalagmites:
horns, fangs, tapers, fingers
all dripping like faucets
in the night. It’s water
on limestone over centuries
that made this, he said,
pausing in a cavern so large
our lamps, like our voices,
faded. Tired, mud caked,
each of us, at his insistence,
put a hand before our face,
and killed the lights. Dark
bit down, swallowed wholly,
and I was back in that motel
off the interstate, shocked awake,
fumbling for a bedside lamp
that wasn’t there, that was
across town where you were
or were not sleeping. I swear
that I smelled disinfectant
in the air, that I heard an A.C.
wheezing. And in that moment,
crouched under earth, failing
to stare my hand into being,
I felt all over what you said
when I left, how our years
together were no time at all.