The two of us at the prow; the bored guide

The two of us at the prow; the bored guide

poling our boat down the underground river.

In this limestone cave, lucent, flesh-like rock

is tamed, renamed the Hanging Gardens,

Satan's Beard. Plant spores from tourists' jackets

grow under the spotlights on the cave walls;

we are the cave's only other life.

At water's edge, we're stopped. Beyond, a fall

of rocks, the hum of a generator.

The guide turns off every light. All darkness:

I am alone in it (tell myself we)

the slow eye of darkness unbearable,

and to be borne, alone. And a part of us

as surely as the sudden return of light.