Cave

A patch of dark in the forbidding green:
I point a curious finger and a hand
quickly pushes it down. Do not look,
do not point. We turn back to the world.

They say it once served as refuge
for those hiding from the Japanese.
Mostly women, escaping the comfort.
They have gone. Nobody goes there anymore.

But I cannot help thinking of things
that have remained in it with the years--
wrinkled skin of snakes, a tangle of women's hair.
Maybe the constricted bones. The loneliness

it must be enduring. The lack of voices.
All this time the cave's mouth fanged
by untended leaves and roots and vines,
preventing the world and its newfound

kindness. The feral grass breeds around it,
but grandmother insists it is all right,
her gnarled fingers caressing the air
as if someone she loved is still there.

The old people, hunched and mumbling,
I blame them for these stories. Even now--a stretch
of years, a far city, the good light that strokes
the fear. But it is still there. Something is stirring

in the perfect stillness. The wind, the women,
a pointing hand. It is still there.