We enter from a door blasted
in her side, down metal stairs
past folds of fleshy flowstone,
stepping on lungs of a great giant--
Grandmother Earth--in Wind Cave,
at the Center of All That Is.

The first explorers had to crawl
down Her windpipe to get inside,
past Her whistle, past Her sigh,
wind so strong it blew their hats off,
blew their lamps out.

Now the throat's blocked to keep
young children from falling
through its eighteen-inch membrane;
chords cut, the cave is songless,
speechless.

Like a virus
we swarm the lungs,
creep past the silence,
twist deeper through holes and folds,
past brown mud-breathing skin,
we penetrate
tiny air pockets,
smoke-blackened,
pick-axed,
narrowing
down,
down
till
no
air
sacs
left;
no-
thing.