My first boyfriend, The Archaeologist
He found the lower reptilian half
of a fossil - its cross-section limbs curled like
a tale with flipper toes intact.
Then he told me how flesh and bone can turn
to stone: negative particles attract
calcium deposits and gather together
minerals into the shape of a body –
the shards of bone now strips of stone;
the creature’s bowels now bright crystals;
‘till this fat rounded rump with creases is just
a rock, smooth and folded hard
in the palm of my hand.
Lecture 2: Self
It's when a word clogs up a thought
or checks a feeling tide
that I most long for times before
my senses died and all
my neural nodes fell into lingual codes;
just one more minute
of such life would leave it rich
to die; fulfilled by silence,
an opal eye lapping up the colours
of the seams in the wood dye, I ...