Crawlspace

I am soft pink and primordial at the end of my cord,

slithering along within the belly of a beast bigger.

My trouble light screams against the blackness,

but my tongue dies in my mouth.

Flies assail the naked bulb,

tick-tick at it, frantic to merge with the bright,

then reel away blind and splinter against raw earth below,

or click against the oaken ribs above.

All things dissolve outside my reach.

I am the itch.

I am the disease.

I am the weak thing that refuses to leave.

Light is the illusion which provides color.

Yellow is black without sun.

Here, in permanent darkness,

in swirling dust,

my progress is sealed within the cracks.

Nothing grows.

East is not east.

West is a smear of red sky in a bad Western movie.

The moon, when we find it here,

is square as a packing box.

We need not look for the pale shoulder of morning.

--Mitchell Hegman

Note:  I posted a version of this poem almost six years ago when I first launched my blog.  I am reposting today after a few alterations.  I originally drafted the poem in the 1980s after spending a day working in the crawlspace of a Victorian mansion in Helena.  Poems are never finished.