The Cave (Poetry)

I have sometimes thought myself back inside
my mother — in her cave — that dark and
                                blood-rich pit
that started me — where this body grew and she —
entirely by default — fed and nurtured it.

I have the memory impressed in lightless vaults — the scan
my blindness took in absence of any lucid thought
to save those first sensations — claustrophobic maybe — caught
in her subterranean echoing dead sea.

My body shared whatever nourishment she took along with
all the then-current poisons — the taint that leaked through from
the world outside — her self-secreted acid rain reached every cell of me
burning out the links and choke-chains forged — broke genetically

whatever mould they had in mind — he and she —
my makers casual in their hit and miss biology —
so when I tunnelled through and tore her flesh —
made her bleed because of me — I guess she held a grudge

all these long years... Now I’m left wondering about
the true nature of that darkness still to come — the thought
of her cave echoes a warning chill as the grave. Meanwhile
I’ll search my patch of sky — seek gleams of comfort from a
                                nursing sun.