The Lovers of Speleology

The cavity unit surprises the visitor by the wide variety of its underground[1]
landscapes heirloom oil-burning lamps
the silkscreen of the conquistador, silver fish
in their silent ministrations, shoe-horned
into your parent’s basement at the moment
of the meeting of two masses, your father not
mellowed, just more so. 6 a.m. showers to blasted
Credence Clearwater Revival, makeshift
plywood on hinges between your bedroom
and the bathroom is not a door
nor a median, water engulfed through
these cracks and diacleses, & his invective
bowling-ball flung, turkey after turkey
meets the épée of your darting sarcasm
the valleys were gradually deepened
while a UFO glides in your mother’s breast—
mysterious symbols like rosettes, pentacles
chrisms. In Shotgun Willy’s refuge of the tracked
the framed photographs of every Ms. Columbia Valley
circa 1939 who acted on the imaginations
of men and left none indifferent, a study
in the graduation of sun-damage: ‘39 through ‘48
reveal their beauty obscurely, in cuneiform, wedge
of shadow under lip, hair nothing more
than vapour plumed on glass, crystals of sinus,
gypsum, pearls of caves, and pint after pint
of that watery draft. A baby smiles more
at a symmetrical face, but can love a towel draped
over a mechanical arm. Cut from the same cloth
scrapers, polishing machines, etc, Doukhobor stock
their bird-bone churches floating in woods of birch,
singing as they scythed tracts into the Canadian shield.
At the time of the Wars of Religion—yes, they were onto
something. Now observe your 16-year-old self
in a bad way, vodka-tumbled through the pogoing sloe
of the ‘kids these days,’ your bruises linked
in defiant archipelago. Knocked-up, you elected
to be knocked around, far in the cavity and many
bones. The granolas had potions for everything:
clary sage for the cramps, passion flower for the grief—
your secret, under the effect of glaciers—but when
did your parents get so old? How did it last this long?
Father’s diatribes: cronyism, Canadian hockey goons,
bleeding heart feminazis, mother’s evening-long baths
the tomb of the goddess who bore a snake, Pyreene—
a frightful balance. In the basement with its doily-draped TVs
brass pheasants, beer-crate bolstered ancient
futon, your mother’s tissue smeared between
slides in Calgary, you submit yourself
to the wait, to all lovers of speleology. In your dream
the TV picture screwing shut, that final silver
fading eye, through which several hundred deeper caves
with mammoth dimensions, such as the cathedral,
equivalent in volume to the Notre Dame in Paris—
the screen shatters. You crawl inside.

1. The italicized text is lifted from a brochure explaining the Lombrives cave network in France.