Spelunking

20 November 2025

https://poems.culturing.net/2025/11/spelunking/

I went spelunking, into your heart.
What gave me the right?
You did, when you opened the door.
I have touched the floor,
and you cried out for more,
but you must decide what follows.

--

Were you hoping a surgeon would take your heart
and repair it with expert hands? Did you crave
the assessment of wisdom to piece together
your missing parts? My dear you are that surgeon.
No other is qualified. I have just readied the room.

--

I see you from afar and wave.
The sun is brighter today. You are on your own,
but at home in your skin, which has grown
less thin. Thus I greet you and smile.
All is well, I presume?

--

And yet not all is well, not at all.
The presumption of innocence lingers
like a sad little girl on the day she discovers
that life is pain. These incisions --
what have we done?

--

We have done what must always be done
on the road to experience. When the time comes
the clock strikes and summons the boys with their prying hands.
But the older one gets the more careful these hands become.