SOMETIMES THE SPACE BETWEEN US IS CAVERNOUS

By Emma Keun

Only in lightless chambers

And narrow places

Walls enclosed

Like fists, clenched

As a snail-shell, wound

Like bared teeth rending flesh

Bound within a spider’s web

Encased in membranes

Paralysed, anaesthetised

Within an oubliette

This shrunken cell

This airless tomb

These catacombs

Moulded by mouldering bones

Whispering a soft susurrus

Of dead tones, flattened

Between leaves of ancient tomes

Stacked into slivers between shelves

Into a puzzle box, locked

In a boxer’s clinch

No lover’s kiss, this –

Breathless yet fleshless

Heartless, crushed

In cracks and bricked-in

A mausoleum’s embrace

Doors sealed and tumblers clicked

Under loam, six feet deep

Turning a contortionist’s trick

In labyrinthine tunnels, collapsed

Under mountain-weight

Back-breaking ocean-depth

Compressed in presses

Crammed with rust

Jaws forever jammed shut

Thighs cinched, roped tight

No finger’s breadth

Between clamped lips

Buried in silence after the avalanche

In the space between shadows

Imprinted in a nuclear blast:

Do you become mine – I can barely remember the sun. 

#darkpoetsclub