She couldn't explain, how---
after the vast crawl
through the
Arctic tunnel -
at one point too dark
to even
cry mercy--
how, suddenly,
moonbeams emanate
upon the ceiling of ice

"Drop the ropes!"
she calls back
and the ice pick echo stops
Her team's eyes lifted above
candles snuffed
flashlights out
for along the glistening rock
a colorburst of illumination
ancient dancing patterns
flickering archipelagos
and she cannot understand
why all eyes
are suddenly on her…
just pregnant silence
without explanation

She only knows
That there is
a coolness
in her solar plexus
where heat once burned
when a private sort of hell
used to flicker and churn

Tendrils of light
reach out
"It's ..me" she says, astounded
For she had just been pulled
from the jet-darked skies…
as the dusk
gets  electricified..

and now
she floats
like a dance floor goddess
lost in
rhythmic paradise
whose switch for joy
has been flicked
to ON