The two of us at the prow; the bored guide
poling our boat down the underground river.
In this limestone cave, lucent, flesh-like rock
is tamed, renamed the Hanging Gardens,
Satan's Beard.  Plant spores from tourists' jackets
grow under the spotlights on the cave walls;
we are the cave's only other life.
At water's edge, we're stopped.  Beyond, a fall
of rocks, the hum of a generator.
The guide turns off every light.  All darkness:
I am alone in it (tell myself we)
the slow eye of darkness unbearable,
and to be borne, alone.  And a part of us
as surely as the sudden return of light.