EIRA STENBERG There is a cave in man There is a cave in man, it is where he comes from. He does not know that. It is not a womb, it is stone, the place where he returns to take refuge from woman who sleeps curled up inside him. It is where man keeps his weapons, claws and teeth, the early image of his sex, where he goes to look at his dreams, hunched up like a caterpillar, chin on knees. When woman wakes up, man leaps to his feet and does not know where he is now. He sees breasts and womb, the body's icon like a window to heaven and the creamy swamps of her lap, the toothless mysterium of thirst and the mother-of-pearl saw of hunger, teeth and blood. To speak of love To speak of love, of what one cannot speak - a blind alley, a mirror in which someone hangs upside down from an invisible tree feet wrapped around a branch as if wrestling gravity, mouth open, no voice. Or to speak as if love were a door to which longing is the key and behind the door, the tree would blaze into visibility, the fetus would straighten its legs and dive up to the surface, would speak to you, juggler who tosses his head from hand to hand like a die, would offer you a fresh leaf after the flood. Close