THE SINKHOLE

5 8 Y T H E S I N K H O L E D E V I N J O H N S T O N Unclenched and half asleep – bloodstream tinged with melatonin, the hormonal expression of darkness – I lie still, listening to a soft persistent tapping at the baseboard, the little sounds that demand nothing, ordain nothing, explain nothing . . . A mouse worries a curl of wire. The house settles a hair’s breadth, ground giving way far below in a bed of porous limestone. And through the stone, a cavern meanders for a mile or so to Uhrig’s Cave, a dank saloon strung with lights, where the chorus sings, We sail the ocean blue. A stream of cold air, redolent of soil, leads on through a mushroom farm to swimming pools of wet clay, penates of brick, and bones of prehistoric peccaries. The entrances have long been lost in basements, behind furnaces, or sealed with highway rubble. These birdless regions now permit no tra≈c with the surface but for the secret course of water and low tones of a gallon jug. 5 9 R I see my mother’s ghost among the dead, sitting in silence near the blood. Not once has she glanced this way or spoken: does she not recognize her son? Thick drops beat against the glass. The ceiling plaster ticks, a sound as soft as a struck match or shutter click. As my head begins to settle, days flash behind my lids without sound – Lampyridae, the cold and shining ones. ...