the fossil record
<<51>>
Here they come,
cretins scrawled one beside the other
in the dark. Indigenous
to themselves and each other,
here they come fastened together,
male and female like before.
He of the grunts and guffaws,
she of the quick laughter,
come all this way
from the Old Country
which changed each time as soon
as it became a name.
Not that they wished to impose
on us, not in order
to please, certainly not to complain.
Flattened and scattered,
the stories helter skelter
and clothes on the floor,
it happens. What’s in our blood,
twinned? What thins
the courage they’ve taken
from us simply by visiting?
It could be they’re not out to displace us,
only want to find a trick
they left behind, whether
it had a heart or not,
how many legs did it have,
and was it going to love them
no matter what or how sadly
they became.
Judith Skillman