the event
when sky-stone fell into the earth,
the smoke blackened all of celestial dome.
tree bark grew thick with scales of ash,
the heat rose, water flew, boiling ether
choked the beasts. and they collapsed
into mass graves set in this lone, blue
marble, waited in the depths as calcium.
cainozoic era begun with the largest of endings,
botany and fauna slain, punto. zeus’ grenades
slung across the cretaceous/tertiary boundary, now-
ukraine, now-mexico, now-north sea, now-west
of mumbai. and the deccan traps’ sparking ruby
volcanoes, rattling maniacally, suffocating leaves.
i sit in wonky wheelchair, museum-provided,
my friend vertical behind me. tyrannosaurus rex
moves his silly, twin forelimbs about before us,
electric strands moving his painted neck, head
aloft like a chicken’s. we missed them by too
many millions of years, we rebuilt from hunch
and stringed paths connecting phyla. preferential
choice to resurrect those with eyes, a menace
in their paws, phylum chordata. my friend will
buy me a tear-shaped stone in the shop, tinged
just like sugus orange-flavoured candy. and we’ll
lie down, discuss vile scourge that’s human
populace, apologise quietly to theropod dinos,
descendants eaten with sweet potato fries.
tub
what digs you out with a verdigris scalpel, while a powerful blast ignited in their latest attempt to grow lives in the dirt of your online receipt, human blood carries all kinds of filigreed debris, coexisting with the coffin hinges from grotesquely groping eyes panoptic that brought you your morning kettle-hiss, faucet fiddling now, let loose, hotness coldness, piety, lust, bewilderment, supremacy writ into capital, rent hikes for men oiling hair with your rainforests, corners hiding gaspings for breath, a ladybug swatted away by a tank in gaza, a man with down’s syndrome killed with no consequences, violet memories of neuropathic pain still imprinted on your body you are soaking in a fluid warm enough to let it bleed out, breathe in, deliberately feel the edges of a ghost, the heart already drawn in pencil on your hospital radiator seven years ago, fuzzy twinges in on your muscle feel these deliberate, you may not bathe in kind waters so lower your head below the surface, part your lips and scream it
Image © emilyrachelmartin
