A sturgeon washes up on the beach, loosened or dredged from some ancient ledge. Another reminder of how there's no almanac for the time we're living through— Our century's mouth, constantly rooting for the inscrutable fundament of prehistory, wanting some token of life's endurance. Here it is, then, after a fashion— Pillowed by the tide, head of yellowed ivory snapped clear of its body but still attached to a dull sheath of armor, ridged and scaled. I can't tell what's soft in what remains; nor what kept it nearly whole, down in the depths where barely any light tendriled for 120 million years.
Purveyors of fine poetry since 2003.