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.