Open Call | IWD
1 min
Catacomb Echoes
Kathy Shortland-Jones
Kathy Shortland-Jones
Glow worms kindled the Marakoopa Cave,
as I rested, cocooned, listening
to my guide play her flute
in perfect acoustic darkness.
My eyes adjusted. I ate banana bread.
I became convex with anxiety
in coffin catacombs, as I wriggled and pressed
rock into prayerstone, to scramble
bravely into the light. Fearless one!
Who could have predicted this day for me?
Not my children.
On Espiritu Santo, the Holy Spirit herself,
led me Millenium-time through
the chill freshwater, hollow-following
a chain, bolted haphazardly
to the invert, amidst the silty pebbles.
The water portal swallowed
my former self, as I held taut my tight breath,
hand over hand, until the rise in the rock
crowned me out. Exploding
with audacity, my lungs filled with the mettle
of my soul, alone in a dark cavern
with courage for company. My children,
of course, were nowhere to be seen.
I have grafted gifts from Daniel Roux cave:
two matching jagged scars, forearm symmetry,
where I raised my hands to protect my face
as triangulated rock walls protested
my presence. Both lifted arms,
parallel to my cheekbones,
were igneous-shredded: fissures
in tissue. Rusty with phosphate
and slick with bat guano,
I rattled in pain up metal ladders, clanking loose
as aged bolts shook in their drill holes.
Bleeding in the jungle sun, I grinned, intrepid.
My children did not notice.
I have let myself become
my children's dour carer.
At home, in my pallid kitchen,
daughters see me typified. Named
as my role, their eyes cannot reflect
a person they did not meet.
I am tabled – a pause – for now.
But my dark, cavernous memories
echo. Time wriggles
through catacombs to find me.
Where did I go?
Go?
Go?
Go?
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