Cave of Illusions // Michelle Brown

As part of our guest-edited month, “D&D and Creativity,” Michelle Brown has shared her mesmerizing poem “Cave of Illusions” from her book Safe Words (Palimpsest Press).


CAVE OF ILLUSIONS*

At the El Ray

I ordered a drink

I thought you would like

for myself.


Darker than I expected,

I said on entering

and the bartender

on overhearing.


I cancelled two taxis home.

Both drivers would’ve said:

you should’ve gone home

hours ago.


We only had dinner

because the pool was closed

and the park was close

and because you asked me to.


Feels like I’m a dark cave, I said.

Meant to add in. That should’ve been

the only thing I said

all night.


Never go to a second location,

especially down a hallway.

Where the exit is long

and very visible.


At the back of the cave,

you said, there’s another cave.

How long until we get out? I ask.

You put your card on the table.


*An underground cave that never ends, deepening as you walk through it, from a 2016 D&D campaign.

Michelle Brown's work has been published in The Walrus, Malahat Review, Arc, CV2, Grain, Prism and The Puritan, amongst others. A runner-up for CV2's Young Buck prize and the CBC poetry prize, she lives in Toronto where she works as a copywriter and runs an online fabric store.

Back to blog Next