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      August 16, 2008Lee RossiUnderground

      Like a caver edging along a narrow gallery

      who must stoop, then crawl, then shimmy
      like his ancestor snake through the narrowest
      possible hole, I slid my fat boy, weeping
      now in anticipation, between her butt cheeks
      and pressed. It was someone else wearing
      my name, my body. What kind of faith
      pulls him into that unforgiving obstruction?
      Every day men get stuck in places
      from which they can’t withdraw, and suffer
      those slow, painful deaths we like to imagine
      only when we’re warm and well-fed.
      I’m not talking about mineral death,
      of course, but the kind where you’re lying
      in bed with someone you thought you wanted,
      and then realize you don’t. Most of the time,
      if he’s careful and lucky, the cave man
      slips through into a larger chamber,
      a closet or vestibule. And once,
      or maybe twice in a life, he’ll find himself
      in some immense opening, a cathedral
      complete with organ pipes and carved
      pillars soaring into the dark. I pressed again,
      and she relaxed, allowing me to pop
      into that spacious underground, where
      a man could lose direction and wander
      until he’d forgotten why he wanted to leave.

      from #28 - Winter 2007