Kate Camp

Inside these caverns dark and bloody only one man goes
with pickaxe and leather kit he tunnels
to produce the loudest man-made sound on the planet.
Earth flies like terrified geese
drummers burst drums, simple folks
hold their faces in astonishment.

These are the things we were not supposed to know:
that instants would expand to take up whole rooms,
and buildings, prison buildings, occupy our bodies.
The sliding and clanging of doors yes the sounds of captivity
just as they are in the movies, and we are looking back
over our heartbroken shoulders, me with my cut up clothes
you with that scab on your lip, black and oval as a cockroach.

I sleep in your arms, as a half built office tower
rests in the reach of a locked up crane.