Going Down

Every day winch squeals, gears ratchet descending the solitary shaft into caverns of swirled ivory and caramel stalagmites and stalactites, growing toward each other syllable by syllable where words like fireflies are switched on by darkness. There the swift streams of imagination where blind fish swim and shadows shift in the torchlight. Later, clearing the desk, ascending to the present, sometimes only water in my pockets, or pebbles, fool's gold.

Sometimes pink quartz, amethysts, a rock crystal prism mined from midnight that shatters sunlight, spills its secrets across the floor.