Fossil Record

My sons, my daughters,

sometimes, slowing,

you lay yourself in the peat

in its cold spongy embrace, that

hums the ages to your

troubled ear, as it did

to the great lizards;

think what it was for them to sleep

and dream of blood spilled on

tree-fern fronds,

to wake in museum light,

and find children

clambering up.

I see you sinking, and discovering

a new depth--

the bottom you rest on may

also give way, and there,

within yourself, outside of me,

is a darkness we have not foreseen.

There, the constellations enact your shame--

fornication of Gemini,

Libra's retribution--

the moon became your own sneering face

amid planets of bedrooms,

penetrative dramas.

In locked rooms in the homes of friends

you saw your own sodden reflection;

bodies crashed together,

erupting.

My poor child.

You are a cloud of coruscations,

a subtle spiced network,

but your heart

is clogged with stones

and your belly is full of dust.

I have thought about it,

stripping away your flesh

and remaking you,

but when I look into the

empty eyes of my Tyrannosaur, I don't

think you want that.