Meeting Mammoth Cave, Eight Months Pregnant

With my dark eyes open,

I search into the dark

for a reassurance

to soothe me like a look.

No beam will sink or angle,

no slow new mineral drip

through the circling ceiling,

no change of quiet drop.

A womb will throw me outward

(unbreakably deep kiss),

inhospitable, solid,

into no circumference,

carrying dark to hold me,

to empty the slippery

solid cavern’s holding,

to hollow the beautiful

loud strength of a darkness

only dark can reassure,

in the night to my humanness

the unparticled has poured.

“Meeting Mammoth Cave, Eight Months Pregnant” is reprinted from Calendars (Tupelo Press, 2003).