Ocean water began chewing and spitting
out what became the Venado caves thirty
million years ago, almost as long
as I’ve loved you. Guatusos aborigines were first
to slice their slim perfect limbs
through the dark, sliding callused fingers
against the jaw fossils of humpback whales
trapped in a scream along the caverns.
Caves don’t swallow people, that’s a lie
slipped through swollen brown lips
and I’m supposed to be grateful
to be one of the first people to crawl
on hands and knees
through bat guano while the little beasts
beat their wings, furious and terrified
above me. This is what I’ve done
for you. Felt the brush
of tarantula legs
on my thigh, the sickening crush
of a bloated cockroach under my palm,
completely unseeing and reaching
for whatever might reach back.
There’s no light at the end of the tunnel.
Everything circles back to where it began,
and for one long minute I have to stand
between the splayed legs
of what should have stayed buried at sea
so my eyes don’t burst into blindness
from the sheer brightness of it all.
By Jessica Tyner
Jessica Tyner is originally from Oregon, USA, a member of the Cherokee Nation, and has been a writer and editor for ten years. Currently, she is a copy writer for Word Jones, a travel writer with Mucha Costa Rica, a writer for TripFab, a copy editor at the London-based Flaneur Arts Journal, and a contributing editor at New York’s Thalo Magazine. She has recently published short fiction in Out of Print Magazine in India, and poetry in Slow Trains Literary Journal, Straylight Magazine, and Solo Press. She lives in San José, Costa Rica.
