First the guide
led us by flashlight
holding the beam
above our heads
and when we stopped
in a circle somewhere
at the basin
where the ceiling
went up a hundred feet
he doused the light
and now in darkness
so total as to bring
one child to tears
my father’s voice
spoke to me over
my right shoulder.
What’s that on your
shoulder he said
making the shape
of a spider with his
hand, which caused
me to shout and the child
to cry harder. I was
an older boy but
still afraid and more
afraid to show him.
When we were
the same body
he drank long beers
called Schmidts
after his shift at French’s,
when one summer weekend
he stole a relay switch
to stop the belts, winning
the strike. The relay
in his pocket
like a tiny Eagle
approaching the moon,
separate from its source,
and from its destination,
as my father took drink
after drink. The cave
was dripping I thought
from the great spigot
of beginnings when
our guide clicked
back on his light. There
is torture here, but really
there’s no death, said Virgil
to Dante in the poem
I had not yet read.
Nearby but in a deeper pool
of dark we heard
gone on ahead of us
the voices of more children
who were singing as they climbed.