Confronted with the grotesque and beautiful evidence
I am powerless to move my mind from its intent.
Above me, in the angles of the glass case,
fossil fish bark in stillness.
I study a note on oxidized metal,
fending off the desire to look up into those rusted jaws
and thus redefine my locale.
Petty man like other petty men,
from a circuit of low dikes,
seeing history in stone and sky,
tripped with the pettiness of waspwaisted substance.
(The closure to the west much favored by refugees.)
A gambled richness in the foliage hides precious atrocities,
obscure and unattended warnings.
Harm is stamped, a fracture to these jaws.
Economies of mute movement and a theory of death,
the tourist-pleasing beauty of its symptoms.
Under the red Jurassic robe never to be touched.