Frank Dullaghan
Doing P8 in Winter
We were wet from the start,
Slipping in
Where the stream splashed down,
To plunge into the throat
Of the cave
And belly-crawl,
Fingers moulding
The rock’s muddy skin,
Till we could stand
Into lamp-shoved shadows,
Watch walls convulse about us.
I watched you
Hold your mind tight,
Telling no-one
Your terror at confinement,
As you unravelled yourself
From a cut in the rock
To edge along,
Legs arching walls,
As water routed its own way
Below.
We came to where water fell,
Gushed down,
Showering the pool below
In a rush of sound,
Then whispered away
Beneath its own echo.
And we in our turn spilled down
On a line
To flop through the pool
Onto spray-slicked slabs
Humped like great seals
In the wavering eyes of our lamps.
We squeezed ourselves deeper
Until the water finally stopped us,
Lying before us in black silence,
Wide and deep and without marvel.
Peeled half-out of wet-suits
We pissed at its edge
Before turning back,
Legs levering us up
Through the rock,
Then fighting the water’s plunge
We rose
One slow foot at a time
Up a steel rope ladder,
Till hands froze to claws,
Face filled with sparkle,
And out, reborn
Into a grey sky, a wind
Ripping water from our eyes.
Later you said it was wild,
As the van drummed us home,
Our muscles wet on our bones.
Page(s) 44-45
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